“may not need any to have options”. I hope you’re right, but hoping the EU continues to prosper over the next 20-30 years is not what i’d call a plan. The future is unpredictable.

I think this is the fundamental cultural difference between countries like the USA (and Australia) vs most of the EU.

Folks here expect and trust the state to provide for the future, private provisions are easily dismissed as unnecessary. As a result of this the median household wealth of the area I live in is 5x lower than my home country of Australia, despite incomes (adjusted for purchasing power) not being drastically different.

Whether that trust is wisely placed we'll have to wait and see[1]. However I do need to narrow that down a bit, it's not the whole EU, mostly France/Germany. There are other nations moving ahead with private pension schemes etc and much higher household wealth (Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands).

1. My main concern is government investment is inherently slow, politically charged, and pathologically risk averse vs the private sector. This means in the aggregate, over the long term, private household investments will out perform.

This is entirely a problem of putting all of eggs in one basket. Or rather, only having one basket in which you’re allowed to put your eggs. The German pension system is already insolvent, and I suspect it’s not the only one. European welfare states are great n’all, but it would seem they were set up when the going was good and populations were growing. Now with stagnation, they don’t look much like staying solvent and populations don’t have anywhere else to turn

The German pension system is completely insane. There is no fund backing it, and disbursements already exceed contributions to the tune of 127B EUR per year (which is subsidized from the general budget) and the gap is only growing.

Probably explains a good chunk of Germany's and the EUs anemic growth. Simply put, that's 127B EUR that can't be spent investing in the future and growing the economy.

> I won't burden her financially either as I happily live out my retirement on a decent pension.

What is a decent pension and where it will come from? I'm projected to get a decent SSA pension (bigger than a median income in top tier EU countries), but I am not counting on it. What gives you confidence that government will be able to support you through retirement?

> What gives you confidence that government will be able to support you through retirement?

Laws that obligate the country to do so

and this I think highlights a really big difference in perspectives: how do people feel about equality in origin, opportunity and outcomes? As an upper income Canadian I'm getting pretty tired of paying for all that equality, and I think Canada is not yet at the same level as most European countries. My kids may be the first generation that should leave Canada for opportunities.

As a fellow Canadian I don't think it's equality that's the issue. It's services rendered for the payment given

At the current trajectory of the EU though, don't count on it. She will regret you guys not having built up an inheritance for her, considering that EU tier 1 and tier 2 towns and cities are being rapidly bought up by American private equity.

Source?

Source is me. I worked at a major PE firm in a past life doing exactly that. Also check who's the new landlord at many European cities - Paris, Munich, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Copenhagen.... More often than not it's either of the two American investment firms which start with B (and I worked at one of them). European real estate is highly attractive to hedge fund investors because of stable growth and low volatility due to forced undersupply - much better for them than actually working for their 2 and 20 paycheck.

Hmm so anecdata