"The burden of taxation will be so extraordinarily high to maintain the cost of the retired generation that they simply won't be able to have a high quality of life, " Gregg says.

NPR: Sen. Gregg: Obama's Budget Has 'Serious Problems'

"We are protesting about pensions, emergency taxes, the high cost of life, " retired factory worker Kyriakos Anastassiadis told the Associated Press.

BBC: Greeks in fresh general strike against austerity

It is worth noting, though, that this does not include the cost of diminished privacy and disrupted lives for Florida nuns and retired schoolteachers in Rhode Island.

FORBES: The $7 Billion Laundry Bill

The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority has hired a retired judge to review Bechtel's work for potential cost recovery.

FORBES: The Big Dig

Bogle, 81, is retired from management but is as vociferous as ever an evangelist for cost-cutting.

FORBES: Jack Bogle, financier and penny pincher.

The idea behind the credit was a decent one: to target more money at poor retired people than at better-off ones, while keeping down the cost to the Treasury.

ECONOMIST: Pensions

He retired a wealthy man in 1940, but 10 years later poor investments had cost him his fortune, forcing him to make a comeback.

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At the same time, a socially desirable earlier change to the pension system has meant that millions of poor retired farm workers have begun to receive income-support payments, at a cost this year of about 10 billion reais.

ECONOMIST: Defeats and victories in Brazil’s war on poverty | The