Reply #14: Having visited Greece in the 1960s, it's hard for me to believe

[JDPriestly]

that they are that wealthy and paying no taxes.

Europeans generally retire earlier than Americans do. Maybe that is why they stay healthier and live longer than we do.

But in my experience they save more than we do and live more simply. Public transportation is commonly used (saves a lot of money).

When they pay taxes, Europeans pay higher taxes than we do. The countries I lived in (UK, France, Germany, Austria) were quite effective in collecting taxes. In Austria, they assessed your standard of living, not just what your employer officially paid you.

And the tradition of retiring at a younger age is quite well established there.

It may be a legacy from the Great Depression when they just wanted to reduce the numbers of people looking for jobs.

You can't compare one society with another. And currencies differ in buying power. So when you say $90-100,000 per year, I have no idea what that means in terms of standard of living.

Besides, when I was in Greece, a lot of people owned their shops. That may have changed, but those who owned their small businesses just kept working and working.

Funding retirement is a problem that arises in a corporate employer/impoverished employee society. That is the US 100%.

I used to have a job in which I looked at people's income and expenditure statements. It was appalling. There was no way that a person could afford a decent lifestyle on the incomes that people earned, much less the lifestyles that are expected in the US. I had found that to be true for myself, but I had not realized that my sorry condition was the norm not an exception due to some failing on my part.

One thing I learned from living in different countries is that US workers are treated like dirt compared to workers in a lot of other countries.