A double-bankshot from Instapundit leads us to this article with a particularly choice quote:

I don't want to hear anyone complaining about the deficit unless they immediately begin to list ways of taking things away from old people and making them work harder and longer. Otherwise you aren't really bothered by the deficit at all.

The Economist article that he links makes some interesting points about the shrinkage of the labor force that will occur as more people retire sooner. In a funny sort of way it may end up being a slow-motion repeat of what happened to Europe during the Black Death.

In that event, the removal of perhaps as much as half the population of Europe created a huge labor shortage. This in turn lead, eventually, to the breakdown of oppressive and stultifying feudal systems, forced a reliance on innovation and technology (as apposed to slavery) to reduce labor costs, which in its own turn slowly produced modern societies conventionally known as "industrialized".

The slow "graying" of the world's population may (will?) have the same affect. However, because the liberal institutions created by the enlightenment have (so far) managed to survive two hundred or so years of totalitarian attempts to exterminate them, it's possible we'll gain the fruits of the next revolution without having to pay the price in horrific civil and religious wars. This world is too old and our weapons are too powerful to stand such a thing again.