Different people are attracted to different potential outcomes. Compensation is a vector, after all. It’s the usual question of risk versus reward. Some will find the perceived safety of generous government protection and benefits desirable, even at the cost of lower remuneration. Others prefer to swing for the fence.

> nobody I know would ever want to emigrate to the US

And yet people want to get here so bad they illegally stream over the border by the millions.

> I see a lot of refugees trying to get to Germany and Sweden

It's a lot harder to walk from Europe to the US.

I googled it for you

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and...

http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/d...

America has historically been the country most people go to.