Before we get too sappy, let’s remember that living in a society with an aging population also means living under the political power of an elderly majority. The youth have the energy to mobilize, but in the developed world today (and tomorrow) they just don’t have the numbers to stage revolutions, win electoral battles or pass radical reforms. Societies of the old are societies of political stagnation. Their politics produce de facto dynasties (Bush vs. Clinton) and decadent paranoiacs (Berlusconi, Putin, et al). The economic agenda of the old is about preserving costly entitlements, hording jobs and wages for workers with seniority, and fighting inflation. The old tend to live off capital assets that decline in value as the economy inflates, while the young today must work to pay off debts that shrink as inflation rises.