[bokonist]

I'll go one step further than you on social security, and argue that even your take is not quite correct.

The so-called dependency ratio is not a real problem because most people in the economy no longer do productive work. Our standard of living is not bound by labor, but by resources (oil, lumber, arable land, etc). As 60 year old workers start to retire, no fewer resources will be produced, we're not going to produce less oil because 60 year olds retire. But we may consume less resources because fewer people are commuting to work and occupying climate controlled office spaces.