Happy to opine and provide numbers for you as and when you may want it.
One thing I will say though is that the US being a very individually organized society makes it hard for those that prefer that to the more group oriented society here. The farm ethic prevails here without any trace of a meritocracy. That appeals to some and not so much to others. Beyond that,
the money, work hours and so forth are controllable for the most part.
Thanks. I will probably take you up on it sometime down the road and solicit advices from you, nishimark and other expats via a new thread, after I've had time to think and research some more so that I can come up with meaningful questions and rebuttals on the topic of working and resettling in Jpn.
I completely understand what you're saying above in theory. It's just hard to know where I stand on that personally. I'm pretty Americanized, but there's also a Japnaese in me that makes it hard to fit in US even after all these years. I love the salary, privacy, work-life balance, educational setup and lack of 上下関係 in the US. But I can't stand the self-entitlement, victim mentality and lack of courtesy that are so prevalent in US (don't mean to paint with broad brush... of course there're many good people here). Anyways we can carry on this discussion another time.