Yes, hunter, you paid in all that. But at the time you were paying it in, your parents' generation were receiving a pension. Where do you think that came from, the fairies? No, it came from the people who were paying it in - you, and your generation. Pension schemes can't print money, they have to have cash flow, in and out. There is some elastic, but it is not everlasting.
When DH took early retirement was made suddenly redundant, and the firm then went bust, the pension scheme had to be taken over by an insurance firm and what there was in it carefully invested so that it would continue to keep the ex-employees in their old age when no-one was paying ahything in any more.