>This is somewhat tongue-in-cheek because I respect you much more than others here who trash the USA, but why do you live here if everything is so bleak and bad?

1) it was much worse at home when we left
2) programmers are much more respected here than there (in terms of both social and financial aspect of it)
3) after so many years, it's still not much better at home
4) after so many years, I wouldn't know how to do business there. They'd eat me for breakfast.
5) children got settled here (graduated, married, got friends). Can't leave them, and they wouldn't have much of a future there. And we feel much better when we're together.
6) there are a lot of good things here, but they don't become a matter of dispute here. Off the top of my head:
- nobody's bothering us, except maybe religion peddlers who risk their religion at our doorstep once a month, negligible nuisance.
- good roads, good communications (phone, speed of internet at flat rate). Wish there was more public transportation.
- weather is milder here by the coast
- we always wanted to live on the coast :)
- hardware more affordable and generally much better quality than what's sold in Serbia (caveat poor emptor there)
- when I have a job I'm paid regularly and on time, inflation negligible compared to there
- when I have a job we can live really OK and the tax is actually less than there; a lot of it is more affordable than there
- can't beat the feeling when you visit there, knowing you're on vacation at home :)

Just to repeat what I said here years ago, I won't talk behind your back. I'll come here and say what I have straight. Won't lie to friends. And you have the chance to hear it straight, not second hand, and have the chance to respond. I've already been proven wrong and accepted that - among other things, I don't believe in infallibility either :).