At some point these concerns have appeared to validate the theoretical possibility of a liquidity run on sovereigns – that is, the possibility that a government is forced to default, even if it is fundamentally solvent, owing to self-fulfilling reasons.7 The ECB’s response through the OMT programme announced in the autumn of 2012 is another example of the commitment to provide liquidity insurance against a tail risk scenario.
The real resources available to fund pension benefits depend on the economy's long-term growth rate, which in its simplest terms is determined by the growth rate of labor employed plus the growth rate of the productivity of that labor. As already noted, by 2030 the growth rate of our working-age population is expected to decline by half.