Stuff pensioners need today, beyond non-depreciating physical assets, needs to be supplied out of stuff which is produced today. If the economy is growing at a

Stuff pensioners need today, beyond non-depreciating physical assets, needs to be supplied out of stuff which is produced today. If the economy is growing at a faster rate than pensioners are increasing their consumption, anything they've "banked" can proportionally hold & increase its value (unless it was very poorly invested). But if pensioner consumption grows faster than the economy, then there's less stuff to go around. Either pensions are worth less, or a bigger slice of the pie goes to pensioners (e.g. propping up asset prices with cheap money) and young people are screwed over (since they don't have many assets). The weird politics we're seeing these days is driven by a mix of the latter effects, I believe, amongst other things (like loss aversion in older people with less productive capacity, and cohort effects in communication media choice leading to information bubbles).