> The key difference is that Europe has actual pensions backed by some sort of government scheme where the current working generation pays into a pool that gets

> The key difference is that Europe has actual pensions backed by some sort of government scheme where the current working generation pays into a pool that gets then distributed to the current pensioner generation. That means we don't have trillions of dollars of money that is desperately screaming for the even most minuscule return and is spread so wide across all possible investment asset classes that even a complete collapse of one investment won't wipe out even close enough money to be actually felt by the pensioners. I disagree with the diagnose, the issue as I see it is that there is indeed more risk averse behaviour in European Investment Banking and VC's. Also there is not enough competition in banking in Europe it's effectively the same banking group's since the 1800's which again impacts risk behaviour. They can all get very attractive returns with near zero risk in real estate investment. Anyone in the VC scene in Europe will demand a huge amount of due diligence and large fraction's of the company for moderately small amounts of investment, because they probably struggled a lot more to round that funding. You either have central European banks ear marking specific loans for R&D/Seeding only or you need to make real estate less attractive to park money into.