In this essay Robin Blackburn conducts a critical review of the fiscal crisis and corporate corruption of an aging society. The events of recent years (the bubble of US investment funds, the rise and fall of stock markets, and a chain of major business scandals, from Enron to Parmalat) have caused billions of dollars to vanish of the savings of workers on both sides of the Atlantic, revealing the inability of the financial services industry to play its role as custodian of savings and pension funds. Likewise, it also highlights the absence of responsibility at the heart of what Blackburn calls "gray capitalism," a term that alludes to murky practices and the lack of transparency in the financial and corporate world. The author explains why attempts to cover the cost of aging in society through a proliferation of financial products are doomed to failure and have a series of unfortunate side effects. In fact, the so-called financial engineering has allowed companies to escape taxes, while encouraging a new type of executive to accumulate absurd fortunes at the expense of shareholders and employees. But, in this analysis, Blackburn is not limited to exposing the problems; It also discusses solutions by identifying new sources of pension financing (especially how to ensure that companies make a real contribution) and outlines what could be a new progressive pension fund regime, covering all citizens and in the that the responsibility cannot be diluted or avoided.