> Why? Because unlike the American pension system which is mostly backed by the stock market, European pension systems depend on young and healthy workers to pa

> Why? Because unlike the American pension system which is mostly backed by the stock market, European pension systems depend on young and healthy workers to pay the pensions of the current pensioner generation. Using investment returns to pay for retirement is no less dependent on young and healthy workers. Us retirees own the companies, working people work for them, and we skim the returns. It accomplishes the same thing but with less central planning. It's still vulnerable to demographic traps.