In a post below I speculated that China, in order to ease the burdens of its aging population, might simply resort to screwing over its senior citizens and cutting them off from all public assistance. Impossible, you say? Too cruel and unusual? Ah, but it appears that Putin's government in Russia—which enjoys Beijing-like ruthlessness—is now doing something similar: dissolving all public benefits to old people, and offering instead a monthly cash payment. The deuce of it is that this cash payment may not get indexed to inflation, so in a few years time it will become meaningless and Russian seniors will have virtually nothing.