If you carefully follow public policy you may already know that voting is a tremendous waste of time. Even if it weren't, though, one thing is for certain: the 2012 presidential election is high in the running for least important election of your lifetime. Whether Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, or Vermin Supreme wins in November, you're screwed in January. 

It's a tradition for politicians and do-gooders to let us all know that every fourth November we'll have a chance to vote in the Most Important Election of Our Lives — it's also a tradition to write about this tradition.

The presidential election allegedly offers voters a clear choice between (at least) two distinct paths for our country, but the similarities between the two leading candidates are striking. Conor Friedersdorf wrote a great post about why he could never vote for Obama or Romney based on their stances on drone warfare and civil liberties. Both Romney and Obama, a former cocaine user, have similar positions on the drug war. They have a history of similar health care proposals. They'll both increase spending. The list goes on. 

Obama and Romney also share one other important position that they will never, under any circumstance, deviate from: selling your future to subsidize old people's incomes — old people who are usually a lot wealthier than you are. The median net worth of a household headed by someone 35 or younger was only $9,300 in 2010. For a household headed by someone 75 or older, the median net worth was 2,231 percent higher at $216,800.