Sadly, in most of the Western countries, your pension payments go to paying the pensions currently being handed out. By the time you'll need yours, unless something changes, there won't be enough money to pay it.

That's why you're now encouraged to enlist in private pension saving plans and all those things.

At least, that's the outlook in Belgium.

We only do that for the government part of the pension. your additional pension is saved up and invested for you. Currently there is about 2 trillion USD in the Dutch pension system.