[fmajid]

Since Europe is to the left of the US, whatever the US is doing right (pun intended) is bound to be something the Left won't like.

The US also has plenty of bureaucracy, and what's worse, a lot of it stems from Common Law and capricious courts that interpret it, which is partly why large civil engineering projects like upgrading the NYC subway cost 4x more than the equivalents in Western Europe (minus the UK) or Japan.

I think the biggest factor is the sheer size of the unified US market and its economies of scale, and a second one the fact the US Social Security is limited compared to European retirement systems, and thus people have to save in their pension funds, freeing up a huge amount of capital for investment, while at the same time creating enough competition that they don't have the sense of entitlement that British feudals or continental bankers have, leaving entrepreneurs with crumbs.

Source: I'm from France but I moved to San Francisco to found my two startups, because I'm not a glutton for punishment. Then again I moved to the UK (for family reasons), so I guess I am a masochist after all.

[baxtr]

I think the second part of your second point is the critical one. Europe has also a lot of free capital, but if it’s invested it flows to the US. Why? Because returns are outsized. But I wonder why?

[inglor_cz]

Yeah, when you think of it, the US economies of scale are huge.

In the European single market, you still don't have, for example, an affordable parcel service. For a Czech e-shop to send a package to France, as I did a few days ago, is something around 12 eur postage fee. It would be 4 eur within Czechia.

American e-shops can send packages from Florida to Alaska for peanuts, and they don't have to bother with translations into 20 languages.