THE WHOLE THING WAS A PONZI SCHEME, THE POLITICIANS TOOK THEIR WINNINGS AND YOU’LL BE STUCK WITH THE BILL: The Global Blue Model Crisis:

The laws of arithmetic don’t stop at the U.S. border: an explosive new report out from Citigroup shows that public pensions are grossly underfunded. . . .

The report singled out Germany, France, Italy, the UK, Portugal and Spain for having public sector pension liabilities in excess of 300 percent of GDP, while noting that corporate pensions in the United States and the UK are not in particularly good health either.
It’s an unpleasant reality that’s dawning on the Western world: the comfortable 20th century welfare state only appeared sustainable while the baby boomers were in the active workforce. As that venerable cohort ages (and reaps the considerable benefits provided by advances in medicine to live into a ripe old age), the demographics have shifted, and the underlying numbers just don’t add up any more: there are fewer and fewer working people available to support an aging population.

The adjustments the world over are going to be painful and ugly, when people at the end of their working lives realize that the comfortable retirement they were counting on is anything but assured.

Maybe this is why they’re now pushing assisted suicide so hard.