Again, by focusing solely on the salary you're missing the bigger picture. I know y'all are conditioned to just focusing on the salary, but there is so much more to life.

Tell that to my landlord who's gonna collect his rent check tomorrow? Hell I'll give you half as a reward if you can convince him to forego the rent for this month.

I don't think I am. Spanish employees of Google benefit just as much from Spanish employment law as Jose's Web Dev Shop. It's the purest comparison considering it's within the exact same country.

While this sounds like great philosophical advice, in practice big salaries do attract employees regardless. If you want to solve the "brain drain to American companies" problem, ignoring the fact that they pay better isn't likely to help.