I think European countries need to get serious about investing money locally. The UK is a particularly egregious example but it’s taking begging and pleading with the mansion house accord to even convince pensions to try to invest in the UK economy. Every country should make a portion of local (at least within Europe) investment a prerequisite for whatever favourable tax treatment pensions and similar products get.

So much wealth is tied up in pensions and it’s folly to let it all go to supporting the U.S. and eschew local investment altogether.

I partially agree, but if my private pension needed to invest into the underperforming FTSE250 by law, I’d just opt out of that system and put my savings into a US/Emerging-markets index myself.

I’m not patriotic enough to spaff my compound interest opportunity on a bunch of dying tobacco, oil, & mineral extraction companies to put any of it to work in the FTSE250.