Millions of words have been written about the financial crisis we entered in 2007.
Last month I visited Greece, one of the countries that has had to suffer more than most in the world as the financial meltdown continued year after year.
The debt burden has reached 180 per cent of GDP with various recent bailouts from the EU, and the IMF totalling close to $250 billion.
The financial mess Greece is in today is now being replicated in many developing countries driven by pensions.
According to an analysis by the World Economic Forum (WEF), there was a combined retirement savings gap of more than $70 trillion in 2015, spread between just eight major economies Canada, Australia, Holland, Japan, India, China, the UK and the US.
The WEF says the deficit is growing by $28bn every 24 hours, and if nothing is done to slow the growth rate, the deficit will reach $400trn by 2050, or about five times the size of the global economy today.
Pensions were set close to average life expectancy, given to people that were viewed as having sacrificed their earnings in times of war, and paid for by employed workers when state coffers were depleted post 1945.
Since then the circumstances around work, and retirement have shifted considerably.
Life expectancy has risen by three years per decade since the 1940s but the retirement age has hardly changed in most economies.
This longevity means that people are spending longer not working without the savings to support themselves.
This problem is amplified by the size of generations and fertility rates.
The population of retirees globally is expected to grow from 1.5bn to 2.1bn between 2017-2050, while the number of workers for each retiree is expected to halve from eight to four over the same timeframe.
We also expect our governments to keep us alive longer with free or subsidised health care whilst at the same time refusing to contribute more through later retirement.
Worse, on the other side of employment, we start life not at 16 or 18 anymore, but after university which we also expect to be free.
The WEF has made clear that the situation is not trivial, likening the scenario to a “financial climate change”.
This short-term greed only pushes the borrowing required to pay for all this to the next generations, and the next, and the next, until either the burden becomes so great that short-term politicians must act, or the market pulls funding.
Like climate change, some of the early signs of this retirement savings gap are in place today, and if not handled properly in the medium and long term, the adverse effects will be overwhelming.
While implementing various system reforms like raising the retirement age will help, ultimately the money in the system must come from somewhere.
Social security programmes will need to cut benefits, increase taxes, or borrow from somewhere else in the government’s budget to make up for the coming shortfalls.
In the US specifically, it is expected that the Social Security trust fund will run out by 2034.
At that point, there will only be enough revenue coming in to pay out approximately 77pc of benefits.
We all need to learn there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Gordon is the former presiden and chief executive of BMMI. He can be reached at gordonboyle@hotmail.com