I understand your point but it feels like it's not addressing the actual issue: Why did the elderly put their life savings into the S&P 500? And why does everyb

I understand your point but it feels like it's not addressing the actual issue: Why did the elderly put their life savings into the S&P 500? And why does everybody encourage pumping all your life savings into stocks? A possible answer is that people still believe risk-free 5%+ YoY returns is perfectly normal because of purely historical reasons and disregarding the current economic realities (growth rates) of the world. Considering the current demographics in many developed economies it's just not going to happen! How about bailing out their pensions instead of the companies?