I'm not sure what this obsession is at the moment with 'fat pensions'. Pensions are far from 'fat', and (european) governments have been very dishonest about what will happen state pensions for decades. Governments simply don't have the nerve or honesty to tell the population what's going to happen and get the message across to everyone. And at the same time, youth unemployment is really high. So what do you want, old people to retire 'early' to make way for young people to work, thus requiring a 'fat pension', or do you want them to never retire, and thus not need a 'fat pension'?

Europe's problems can be summed up by Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Which is the next part:

> The older people I talk to show no concern about Europe's economic future, they're always dismissive about the problems Europe faces. They're stuck in the 70's, 80's or 90's it seems.

As an 'older' person in the UK, I've always been 'concerned' about the economic future of the continent, but we've elected increasingly incompetent politicians. When you get older you'll have the same opinions. Politics has gone from being a job trying to manage the country, to being an all expenses paid job with little risk other than re-election, and little responsibility because everything is 'the EU', or a quango (quasi-governmental organization - basically still the Government but not really sackable either).

Consider the UK - ARM was 'ours'. Could you imagine the US allowing it to be sold off to a foreign country? Well, you can guess what ukgov did.

Sabre Engines wanted a tiny amount of Government funding, who said no, so they closed and sold off some incredibly useful tech.

Maggie Thatcher sold off, and perhaps had to sell off, public utilities such as water, with little extra thought as to 'what happens next'. Well, that's 'gets bought out by foreign companies and channels profit abroad instead of reinvesting'.

Then there's the very European union-centric industries that often shoot themselves in the foot and ruin entire industries (UK car manufacturing spent more time on strike in the 1970s than building cars and can you guess what happened).