I'm from EU, finance and IT are neck to neck for highest paid professions. Absoute pay numbers are lower than US, but under no circumstances could they be called average.

Finance is usually much higher paid (unless you work at US companies, e.g. European offices of Google or Facebook). It's not "average average", like the salary of a truck driver or a researcher in the academia, but still nothing to write home about. Regular engineers or senior people in the trades (e.g. HVAC installers) often earn comparable salaries.

Compensation is great. You can afford to have a good standard of living.

I get paid much more than soft devs get in many cities in the US, of course, much less than SV and similar tech hubs, but I believe that those extreme salaries are mostly because of bubbly economics rather than something perenial. It won't last.

If you can leave behind all that inequality and problems has, and only think of yourself, those tech hubs look like a good alternative, but personally I find it quite sad myself. I'd rather live in a place where my pumbler has good living conditions, the bus driver and so on.

Also that has good public transport and more collective thinking. Driving a car in those big american streets would make me very depressed.

It's a matter of choice(for some), but anyhow... here in Europe the situation is fine. :-)