What about non-US people? U.S. index funds are off limits to us, and European ones are hard to trust, and normally require a lot of difficult paperwork to get in unless you are a citizen of a particular country, and operate off a very localized, and very small equities market (say Austrian, however healthy Austrian economy is i find it hard to bet my retirement savings on it, especially given neither my income nor my expenses have anything to do with it). And yes, fees of those funds are way higher than Vanguard's, due to their small size.

With income in 7-figure range, one can buy commercial real estate, which gives decent returns and is a good replacement for exchange-traded equities. But what about others?