p.j. o'rourke.of course with earnings of jpmorgan and wells fargo. can the millennials fix the problems of p.j. o'rourke's baby boomers? ♪ >> good morning, everyone. "bloomberg surveillance." i am tom keene. this is our guest host and "surveillance" philosopher, p.j. o'rourke. the author of books like "parliament of whores." about me, the baby boom. one day childhood is over. lamest generation. this is very funny. what made you cry writing about the baby boom? >> i remember what morons we were. you know what made me cry? how we treated our parents. there was a period in the 1960's we hated everything about them. >> before the 1960's we did not get that they fought 2 wars. a lot of parents living and injured and a lot of parents who had lost brothers and sisters. you fast-forward, are we speaking to our children? >> yeah, no. understand.dn't we were so close to this and yet we didn't understand what a horror world war ii had been, what horror the depression had been. there were guys who had fought wo

p.j. o'rourke who writes about baby boomers, but the world is still our fault. le most generations think they are special and have some distaste for generations that follow them and not o'rourke. it is great to have p.j. with us tonight. good to see you. >> good to see you. >> very funny book. as a fellow baby boomer are we really that bad in you say we go well beyond self absorbed. >> we do. we are terribly self absorbed, but are we bad? no, i think we're a very tolerant generation. it's very hard to imagine us as nazis or communists. except play communists, but we don't have that kind of discipline, and it's a good thing. this is a generation that never grew up. yeah, but all of the bad things in the world, they have been done by grown ups. >> you joke about the world being our fault, and you say the reality is the world is a better place thanks to baby boomers. >> i think so. obviously we don't run the world from the time we are born. when we take over the world is when "animal house" is released. [ laughter ] >> and you look down in washington and there are s

o'rourke, in the country. this is about 50 minutes. [applause] >> hello! you're such a gentleman. it's really -- i kept asking p.j. to proceed me out, and he just couldn't bear it. [laughter] so welcome to this conversation with.j. o'rourke -- with p.j. o'rourke who has written this wonderful book, "the baby boom." p.j. has fashioned this book as only he could. it's got some terrific lines, great one-liners, but also a lot of insight and some actual information. i was disappointed at that -- [laughter] we'll forgive you. we'll forgive you. okay. so i love to hear authors read their own work, so i hope you'll indulge us while we've asked p. j. to start us off with a selection from the book. >> brief. >> brief. >> brief selection. [laughter] and this was, actually, the first -- this was the first thing i wrote when i sat down to write this book after thinking about it for a while. we are the generation that changed everything. of all the eras and epochs of americans, ours is the one that made the biggest impression -- on ourselves. laugh -- [laughter] but that's an important accomplishment, because we are the generat

p.j. o'rourke, author of the new book "baby boom, how it got that way and it wasn't my fault and i'll never do it again." it wasn't my fault, i will never do it again, p.j., we are all wiser, supposedly, as maturing baby boomers. what do you think about that? what do you think about the conversation with maria shriver? where should we be going to deal with this female poverty problem? >> well, i'm with the kudlow plan. it's got -- there is some backup there. the great sociologist charles murray did a lot of studies on this and basically what he found was that people who went as far in school as they were capable of going, you know, which is certainly these days a high school education, and who got married and stayed married, and who got employed and to the best of their ability to do so, stayed employed. i mean, may have gone through brief periods of unemployment but took a job, kept a job for as long as possible. when you examine that group of people, as much education as you can stand, married and stay married and work as much as you can, you don't find any poverty. >> that's it. you're r

p.j. o'rourke on the baby boom, how it got that way, and it wasn't my fault, and i'll never do it again. tomorrow at 5:30 p.m. eastern from booktv's college series, we speak with bonnie morris. ms. morris will also be our guest on "in depth" february 2nd. she'll answer viewer questions life for three ore hours. and -- hours. and at 10:30 p.m., larry schweikert presents "a patriot's history of the modern world: volume two." watch for these programs and more all weekend long on booktv. for a complete schedule, visit booktv.org. >> most people don't really understand, you know, how it works. a lot of people write books, and then they spend the next two years trying to get somebody to publish their books. i've never really experienced that. so when people come to me and say how do you get a book published, i say, look -- [laughter] i'm the wrong person to ask. [laughter] but, you know, i finally felt that really i had something to say. i don't write books just for the purpose of writing books. the first three, four books, actually, i did with a co-writer. and basically i would sometimes dict

p.j. o'rourke. with 16 books out, truly one of the funniest people looking at the american landscape.ive us laughter. >> thank you so much. tom keene with "surveillance." coming up, stay at home saturdays. it is unheard of at some banks but credit suisse is telling its junior bankers to put their feet up over the weekend. details next. ♪ >> now bank earning season starts later today with the largest u.s. banks including jpmorgan and wells fargo is reporting 2013. it hasn't been a record year for profits. will legal costs take profits? what exactly are we expecting? >> a good year for profitability all around but if compliance and litigation don't even don't get you, i don't know what will. overall, the top six banks paid out on average $18 billion for broken promises, declines for misleading investors. three years of record profits. billion they paid $23 last year. when you look into the numbers, it tells you very clearly what's happening out there. trading revenue down. the last quarter of the year, equity revenue down. but investment banking fees. god bless the fees. they are up. i.

o'rourke. he excuse his own generation, the baby boom, how it got that way and it wasn't my fault and i'll never do it again. it is great to have p.j. with us tonight. good to see you. hey, good to see you. very funny book. as a fellow baby boomer, are we really that bad? we have been characterized as self-absorbed. but you say we go well beyond that. >> well, we do. no. i think we are like a very easy going, very tolerant generation. very not rigid at all. it is hard to imagine us as nazis or communists except to play communists, in the 60s, pretend communists. but we don't have that kind of discipline. and it is a good thing. you know, you say this is a generation that never group. we never grew up but all the bad things in the world have been done by grown-ups. you say the world, you joke about the world being our fault. you say that the reality is the world is a better place thanks to baby boomers. i think so. you can kind of put the take over the baby boom. obviously we don't run the growled the time we are born. when we take over the world about the time that john belushi comes out in animal house, when that is released. and