Less appetite for risk, less imagination, lack of critical mass for innovation, less cultural diversity, smaller language sphere. Much harder to go without income because of prevalence of longer termination periods for contracts, compulsory health insurance etc.
I actually heard an American say at a conference here in Germany recently, "you all get free health care, so it should be easier for you to quit your jobs and start a startup".
That doesn't seem realistic. We have to pay for compulsory health insurance. Lots of people get public which means it comes out of your wages or benefits (at around 13%!), or they go private and pay a fixed fee. Not having health insurance is not an option.
I went without income or benefit for one month here and people flipped out. It was not something that they had seen before, and freaked out mostly about health insurance. Turns out I was covered under my wife, but if I was not married I would have been in some existential black hole according to the authorities.
