According to a column in the current Business Week magazine (I have the digital edition so for you readers of paper versions, it may be the next magazine), the US is now fourth in the "Global Creativity Index" which a professor has created to define the attractiveness of a country to foreigners.

The very odd thing is that the top three countries are (in order) Sweden, Japan and Finland.

The reason this is odd is that both Sweden and Finland have very high tax rates (although Finland at least has some kind of rule that cuts taxes for (some?) foreigners for the first six months (pity - indeed great pity - it didn't apply to me when I first moved here!)).

It's also odd because Finnish business leaders - yes, including the former boss of Nokia - are always saying that Finland needs to provide financial incentives to attract the kind of highly qualified people that hmmm.. Nokia ... needs.

If they take a look at this "global talent magnet" list they'll see there's no need. As I've said for a long time, people come to Nokia in Finland to improve their cv and as a long-term investment - not for the money - so there's no need to offer them financial incentives.

and anyway, once they are here, they might realise (as I do) that there are benefits to living here that can't be counted in money terms

(cycle tracks and good public libraries to name just two)