Good point! And hanging out on the forum of a company which explicitly helps people start companies to freely get rich.

I came to the USA following a professor I just wanted to work with. He came here in the 80's because of the weather (no kidding), given an existing research environment similar to Europe.

Before landing here I thought the USA was a great country. But my preconceptions have fallen.

I am aware I have started a thread that is drifting way off topic and can potentially get very personal. If you'd like to discuss the issue further over a beer, that'd be great. We can then talk about why I pay almost identical income taxes in the USA and in Spain, and yet here my money doesn't seem to come back to me. You can reach me at my surname at ucla edu.

"I am aware I have started a thread that is drifting way off topic and can potentially get very personal"

You sound like a nice guy, I just hate these myths that the US is somehow a hellhole compared to Europe. And you failed to demonstrate why the US is less free than Europe.

"We can then talk about why I pay almost identical income taxes in the USA and in Spain"

USA: top income tax rate and the top corporate tax rate are 35 percent.

Spain: top income tax rate is 45 percent, and the top corporate tax rate is 35 percent.

Now for the jugular (from heritage.org)!

USA: Unemployment: 5.5%, $39,676 per capita

Spain: Unemployment: 11%, GDP per capita $25,047

It would seem that Americans are almost twice as wealthy as Spaniards, pay less income tax, and have more than half the unemployment.