Perhaps I have a touch of schizo going on but I recently read these two articles and couldn't help but think they might be related.

Retirement Accounts and Treasury Bonds - America's Unprecedented Money and Power Grab

Anarchy in the UK (and US, too)?

I'm currently reading "Chapterhouse: Dune" by Frank Herbert, and found this quote from Reverend Mother Lucilla intriguing:

"A top-heavy bureaucracy the electorate cannot touch always expands to the system's limit of energy. Steal it from the aged, from the retired, from anyone. Especially from those we once called the middle-class because that's where most of the energy originates."

This mentat's primary projection is that we're fucked.