No it can ' t , a lot of education and resources has often been put into those people even if their life has gone awry , it is far more efficient to get working age people into a productive job . The old however are just a drain on the economy , and when they vote to fuck over the economy a plug should be shoved in that drain so they fill the brunt of the cost when their handout reduces . The average pensioner will take out 121 % of what they put into the system , all while stagnant wages , increasing education costs , increasing housing cost , increasing everything costs after the currency has tanked , means that the generation after them will be worse off , because of them . If they want the good old days back kick them out their house into some shoddily insulated dump with an outhouse and send them down a mine to dig some coal so they can heat it .