(FORTUNE Magazine) – FOR JOHN BARRICKMAN of Atlanta, life is a banquet. The 43-year-old president of the Southern Federal Savings & Loan earns $150,000 a year and lives in a stately, $335,000 hilltop house with everything from central air conditioning to a subterranean garage for two of the three family cars. His two-acre, tree- filled lot provides plenty of roaming room for his two kids, three dogs, and two cats. And it's a 45-minute drive on a wide-open freeway to his office in one of America's -- and the world's -- fastest-growing business capitals. Says Barrickman: ''I'd never dream of living anywhere else.'' Barrickman may not know it -- he's never visited Europe, let alone Japan -- but he has captured the most affluent lifestyle an executive at his level can enjoy anywhere in the world. Most upper-middle managers in big corporations earn between $75,000 and $150,000. Where do they live best? Not in London, Paris, or Tokyo, not even Osaka or Munich. Look instead to Atlanta, Cleveland, Omaha, Seattle, or Pittsburgh -- almost anywhere in the U.S. outside such big and costly coastal cities as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Boston. FORTUNE reached these conclusions on the basis of more than 100 interviews with executives and consulting firms in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Not that America's managers are the best paid. At current exchange rates German and Japanese executives earn more. But well-off Americans pay less taxes, and their salaries pack far more punch. According to Organization Resources Counselors, a New York City consulting firm, the same amount of dollars -- or its equivalent in pounds, marks, and yen -- buys 100% more goods and services in Cleveland than in Osaka, and 50% more in Atlanta than in comparable German and British cities. American managers have more of everything -- bigger houses and vaster yards, more cars, mobile phones, freezers, and VCRs, and more stores open more hours to satisfy their whims. The downside? They also have the most anxiety. Americans are far more likely to get fired. Overseas, companies and governments pay for everything from more lavish pensions to university tuition. In America, balancing the urge to spend with the need to save huge sums for education and retirement keeps families under relentless pressure. Nor do a bigger manse and more gadgets automatically translate into the best of everything. Says Robert Holdheim, an American who works in Frankfurt: ''I'd rather drive to Paris for the weekend than to Virginia.'' For blue-collar workers, America is no longer an El Dorado. Between 1979 and 1988 real wages and benefits for production workers rose a mere 0.32% a year in the U.S., vs. around 2% annually in Germany, Britain, and Japan. James Pedersen, an assembly-line worker at a Ford Motor plant near Detroit, echoes a typical lament: ''I have a good life, but it's sure not getting any better. We don't have much savings and can't afford long vacations.'' Adjusting for purchasing power, U.S. workers are still the best paid -- but just barely. And the Japanese and Europeans get generous state-provided benefits that more than compensate for slightly smaller paychecks. In Japan and most European countries, social security pays average pensions equal to 45% or more of workers' final pay, compared with 34% in the U.S. Blanket cradle-to-grave medical care is a birthright in Europe and Japan; in the U.S. 37 million people have no coverage whatsoever. Says Joanna Lucas, 24, a married hairdresser who lives in a London suburb: ''Since we can't save anything, it's a big relief not to have to worry about doctors' bills.'' At the other extreme of the income scale, America continues to offer unparalleled rewards to top executives. Stock options hardly exist in Germany, Switzerland, and Japan, and companies there fear that lavish pay packages will antagonize powerful unions. A study by Towers Perrin, the compensation consulting firm, shows that chief executives for companies with annual sales of roughly $250 million earn a total of $633,000 a year in the U.S., vs. $377,000 in Germany and even less in Japan, France, and Britain. $ At bigger companies the CEO pay gap is even wider. Jacques Calvet, head of France's Peugeot, earned less than $350,000 last year -- despite guiding the automaker to a stirring comeback that has boosted its market value by more than $12 billion since 1983. Calvet doesn't even get a bonus, let alone stock options. His compensation is 4% of Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca's earnings, which averaged $8.2 million for the past three years. FOR UPPER-MIDDLE managers, America seems to be slipping in the compensation sweepstakes. But that's mostly an illusion caused by shifting exchange rates. Six years ago U.S. managers typically earned up to 50% more than their Japanese or European counterparts, measured in dollars. Since then, the falling greenback has put the foreigners ahead. That's the conclusion of a study conducted for FORTUNE by Organization Resources Counselors. ORC sampled jobs that pay $125,000 a year in the U.S. -- a typical salary for, say, the marketing manager or the human resources director for a subsidiary company with sales of $1 billion -- and then surveyed compensation for similar positions in Germany, Britain, and Japan. Heading the list: the German executive at $134,000 a year, followed by the Japanese manager at $130,000. Their British equivalent earns far less, around $85,000 (see table). But fat tax bills whittle take-home pay for Japanese and German middle managers, leaving them with about the same disposable income as American executives. Income tax rates reach 53% in Germany and 65% in Japan, while America's top rate is just 31% -- the lowest among the major economies. Britain, which has no state or local income levies, is the other tax haven for middle managers. Its top rate of 40% on income is about what most executives in big U.S. cities pay at the margin, including state and local taxes. And Britons pay a pittance in social security charges -- $2,900 a year, vs. $5,100 for Americans and $6,000 for well-paid Germans. Europeans and Japanese sweeten their disposable income with more generous company-provided perks. In Britain almost any employee who earns at least $40,000 a year has a company car. At electronics giant Thorn-EMI, a manager earning about $125,000 gets a $43,000 Volvo station wagon, for which he pays extra taxes of $3,000 a year (the company picks up insurance and gas). ''After you've flogged your guts out all day, it's a pleasure to get into a nice car and listen to classical music,'' says Alec D'Janoeff, a partner in the London office of accountants Coopers & Lybrand, who drives a $60,000 Porsche 944 equipped with leather seats and a special four-speaker stereo system. Still, the same take-home pay buys a lot more goods and services in America. Europeans are penalized by two villains: high sales taxes and protectionism. German consumers pay a 14% value-added tax on everything from BMWs to bicycles, while in Britain the rate is 15%. By comparison, Americans in most big cities pay sales taxes of 5% to 8%. By subsidizing farmers and blocking imports, Europe gouges consumers for $78 billion a year in inflated food prices. Restrictions on sales of Japanese cars lift auto prices in most European countries about 25% above the U.S. level. In Japan sales taxes are just 3%. But there, too, rampant protectionism raises the cost of living, as does the arcane, multilayered distribution system. Restricted to buying only local produce, a family in Osaka spends $1,200 for the 620 pounds of rice it consumes each year. An Atlanta family would pay just $560. THE TYPICAL U.S. executive also doesn't spend much more on medical bills than his foreign counterparts do. Take Michael Armstrong, who lives in Chicago and runs part of the Midwestern business of Reuters, the British data services company. He puts $1,600 a year into his company medical plan. After paying the annual family deductible of $500 and other expenses, his total bill comes to just over $2,000. That's a bit more than German managers, who also get most of their care from corporate plans, pay. The Shangri-La for health care -- believe it or not -- is Britain. Executives there profit by combining the best features of both the state's National Health Service and private plans. The NHS fully covers shots, checkups, and other preventive care. After a mother gives birth, an NHS midwife makes visits to help her with the new baby for ten straight days after they leave the hospital. But for surgery or discretionary care, such as hip operations -- treatment that can require months of waiting under the NHS -- executives turn to private insurance for quick, high-quality treatment. The cost: Many companies foot the entire bill for policies that offer only slightly less coverage than in the U.S. The cornerstone of the relatively higher American lifestyle is housing. In bricks, shingles, and land, the dollar simply buys more than the mark, yen, or pound. Only very wealthy Japanese or Europeans are as sumptuously housed as John Burns, 30, part owner of a Cincinnati company that sells computers to businesses. In 1988, Burns bought an English Tudor house (3,200 square feet) bordering a golf course. Price: $300,000. Similar deals are standard in Pittsburgh, Houston, and most other U.S. cities: Roughly $300,000 gets you a four- to five-bedroom house with up to 3,500 square feet, an hour or less from downtown. That's not the case in high-rent locales like New York City, Los Angeles, or Washington, D.C., where the cost of real estate, though declining, is way above the rest of the country. In these cities far smaller houses usually consume even more of the paycheck, leaving less for savings or vacations. Burns's college friend Salvatore Giglio, 32, a manufacturer's representative who lives in the San Francisco suburb of Redwood City, is a typical case. Giglio's house is two-thirds the size of Burns's, yet he pays $3,300 a month -- $900 more than his buddy -- for his mortgage. ''Living here is a financial strain,'' says Giglio. ''But that's the price you pay for paradise.''

Like most New Yorkers, Milton Springut knows the strain of expensive housing. A Manhattan patent attorney with three children, he recently bought a 2,800-square-foot split-level in the luxurious Westchester suburb of Edgemont for $500,000. His monthly housing costs, including property taxes, utilities, and gardening, total $5,500. Though he earns more than $200,000, expenses consume his entire income, except for some $8,500 he contributes each year to a 401(k) retirement plan. Springut is anything but flashy. He takes a one-week annual vacation and owns two modest cars, a Toyota Camry and a Dodge Colt. ''A few years ago I never imagined I'd be making so much,'' says Springut. ''But life is still a rat race.'' British housing comes at New York City prices. London is crammed with Edwardian and Victorian row houses with tiny kitchens and hot-water tanks perched on the roof. For yuppie families, the houses are affordable but small. Berit Stokke and her husband, Charles Grey, both lawyers, live in a 1,300- square-foot, $240,000 Edwardian row house in the London borough of Wandsworth. ''We want to move up to a bigger row house, but that will cost about $450,000,'' says Stokke. ''If we want a dishwasher, we'll probably have to take ours with us!'' In other British cities detached houses are more common, but still expensive. In the Glasgow suburb of Thorn, $300,000 buys only a 1,500-square-foot bungalow on a tiny lot, with a one-car garage. GERMANS and Japanese see the dream of owning a fine house fading as soaring land prices push middle managers into smaller dwellings. In Germany zoning restrictions reserve much suburban land for farming rather than construction, and strict city codes require expensive-to-build, solid-brick houses packed with insulation. A one-eighth-acre lot in Frankfurt sells for $300,000. Putting a small house on it runs another $350,000. Prices in Hamburg and Dusseldorf are lower, but the total for land and house still touches the $500,000 mark. In the Frankfurt suburb of Hochheim, Christoph Gross, a financial adviser with Arthur Andersen, simply can't afford a detached house, so he lives with his wife and two children in an 1,800-square-foot row house. Says Gross, 38, who lived in Dallas for nine months: ''In America you get a bigger house with much more comfort than in Germany. And construction methods in the South are much cheaper than ours.'' Germany is a bargain compared with the sprawling suburbs of Japan. In Tokyo the tiniest detached home within an hour of the city sells for at least $500,000. Middle managers lucky enough to own one have either inherited their homes or bought them in years past. Michio Jibiki, 52, a general manager at Chiyoda Fire & Marine Insurance Co., inherited his 2,500-square-foot home in the prosperous suburb of Umegaoka ten years ago. On his $121,000 salary, Jibiki couldn't dream of buying the house today: It's worth $3 million. The high prices aren't limited to Tokyo. Akiko Swabb, a Japanese who married an American and lives in the exclusive Chicago suburb of Kenilworth, is amazed every time she compares her $700,000, 2,600-square-foot house with her sister's home in Kobe. ''We have twice as much space,'' says Swabb. ''But their house is three times as expensive.'' To ease the strain, Japanese corporations provide cheap, subsidized housing for young managers. At Nissan, executives in their 20s live virtually rent free for up to six years in spartan company dormitories. Then -- usually after they get married -- managers and their families can spend another seven to eight years in company-owned condos or tiny houses that rent for about $150 a month. The low rents help managers save. By their late 30s, when these executives are finally ready for home ownership, companies help out again with subsidized mortgages. Nippon Steel lends employees up to $330,000 at about 5%. A major electronics company trumpets its loan program under the banner HOMEOWNER AT 35. DESPITE HIS affluence, the American executive -- alone among the world business elite -- faces a reckoning that can wipe out his savings, haunt his retirement, or even break up his marriage: paying for his children's education. By and large, U.S. managers send their kids to suburban public high schools. The crunch is college. Giving their children the best possible college education is a cherished goal for most American executives. ''It's more important than the house, more important than anything,'' says Carl Camp, a California financial planner. But despite an unrivaled choice of good schools, including a multitude of decent, low-cost state universities, the majority in this group choose private colleges, where the average annual cost, including room and board, is now $16,000 for a non-Ivy League school. If you want Harvard, tack on another $5,000 a year. On the reasonable assumption that prices will rise 6% a year -- and that you'll earn 7% on your investments -- putting two children through Ivy League schools starting in 1998 would require saving $12,214 a year for the next 14 years. Most executives make too much to qualify for federal aid, and their children aren't eligible for student loans, which are granted strictly on the basis of need. According to Raymond Loewe, president of Educational Planning Systems, a firm that counsels parents on tackling college costs, most families have no more than $40,000 set aside by the time their first child enters college. So they borrow instead, dipping into retirement savings or taking out a home equity loan. Often parents have to drastically scale back their lifestyles, not just when the kids are in college but later as they pay off their debts. In Britain, Germany, and Japan, the burden is generally lighter than in the U.S., but it varies widely. The lowest costs are in Germany, where almost all colleges and high schools are branches of the state. Tuition is free. Eberhard Henkel, a regional sales manager for Swissair in Bonn, spent $12,000 annually -- almost all for room, board, and books -- to send his son to the prestigious University of Bonn. British colleges also don't charge tuition. Sending a son or daughter to Oxford can cost just $6,500 a year in living expenses. The big bill for most upper-middle-class Britons is private elementary and secondary schools, whose appeal has grown as budget cuts and teacher shortages ) hamper public education. For day students, tuition at the Harrow school near London runs to $8,700 a year. At Eton parents spend $16,500 annually for boarding school. ''We cut back on cars and holidays for years,'' says a 49- year-old London compensation consultant who sent his two children to 16 years of boarding schools. ''When my son when to Cambridge, my expenses plummeted.'' In Japan education is far cheaper than in the U.S., though not quite the free ride it is in Germany. Executives tend to choose private high schools and colleges, but their costs are heavily subsidized. Osamu Terada, 49, manager of technology planning for the NKK steel company in Tokyo, pays about $6,000 a year to send his daughter Yoko to Tokyo's prestigious Sophia University and $3,700 in tuition at a private high school for son Takeshi. On his $104,000 salary, Terada handles the payments with ease. Most Europeans also have more generous pensions than Americans. Roger Atkins of Wyatt Group, a compensation consulting firm in Washington, D.C., calculates that without contributing a single mark to his corporate plan, a German executive earning $125,000 who retires after 30 years receives 50% of his salary -- $62,500 annually -- in company and state pensions. The payments are indexed to inflation, and if the executive dies before his spouse, she receives 50% to 60% of his pension, a benefit most U.S. companies don't provide for free. Getting such a large pension hinges on spending 25 to 30 years with one company. But such stability is common among Germans, who change jobs far less than Americans. British benefits are just as rich. In most companies, an executive who retires with ten to 40 years of service receives a pension plus social security worth 67% of final pay. To get that, however, a British manager would usually contribute 5% of salary each year -- all tax deductible -- to the company plan. The system in Japan is a world apart. At retirement, executives receive three to four times their final salary in a lump sum. The income on that nest egg, plus social security, usually comes to no more than 50% of pay. Since that's not enough to live on comfortably, thrifty Japanese set aside big sums for retirement -- one reason for the country's high savings rate. Americans also need to save heavily for retirement. A manager who spends 30 years with a company but hasn't made extra savings receives about 49% of his final salary in pension and Social Security -- the same as in Germany but without the security of indexing. And since Americans like to job-hop, the figure is often far lower. Most upper-middle managers put money into a 401(k), a tax-deferred retirement plan that takes a maximum contribution of $8,475 a year. An executive who saves $6,000 annually for 30 years in a 401(k) and retires with 15 years' service would get a package of pension, Social Security, and income from his 401(k) savings equal to just 54% of his final pay, on average -- less than a British manager gets with a smaller contribution of his own money. Beyond their funds for college bills and retirement, American managers often have little chance to accumulate wealth. The exceptions are mainly people who bought their homes years ago. Ronald Reed, 48, president of a Chicago videocassette distribution company, saves $25,000 of his $135,000 annual income. For Reed, the key is the $600-a-month mortgage payment on the house he bought 19 years ago. Far more typical is New York attorney Springut: ''I never expect to have a vacation house or much wealth. I'll be doing fine to retire with my house paid off and a good pension.'' Britain's low salaries and Japan's modest retirement plans also make it tough for managers there to pile up extra savings. The executives likely to leave the biggest estates are the Germans. Unfettered by schooling or retirement costs, a German manager with a $125,000 salary can usually save about $17,000 a year. Says Thomas Emde, a Frankfurt lawyer: ''Measured in today's money, a German upper-middle manager should be able to leave an estate of as much as two million deutsche marks (($1.3 million)).'' BUT LIFE isn't just about accumulating the most toys. What about the issues usually lumped under the heading ''quality of life''? American expatriates and tourists rightly marvel at the ability of Europe's biggest cities to keep working while their American equivalents -- New York, Los Angeles, and Detroit -- face crumbling infrastructure and high crime rates. ''Its safe here to stay out late,'' says Liza Kroeger, an attorney who recently returned to Frankfurt after a stint in Southern California. ''In L.A., forget it.'' Europeans also have the most vacation. Nearly all German employees -- from secretaries to CEOs -- get six weeks of holiday, while the British take at least four. To the Germans long vacations are as sacred as fresh-brewed beer. ''I don't understand people who won't take their vacations,'' huffs consumer goods executive Erik Stolper, who could be speaking for the entire continent. The majority of Americans still get no more than three weeks off, and managers often feel guilty about taking it all. Leisure is even more frowned upon in Japan. NKK's Terada has 30 vacation days a year, but takes only ten. Europeans manage to profit royally from their leisure time without spending too much money. In France families tend to pass on country homes from generation to generation, multiplying the places a family member can spend a vacation or weekend. ''In France I can go to eight family homes in the country, and I don't own any of them,'' says Henry de Montebello, a Frenchman in the New York office of Russell Reynolds, an executive search firm. Europe also offers a fabulous panoply of cultures in a miniature setting. ''When we were living in Amsterdam, it was a joy driving to Brussels, Antwerp, or Paris for the weekend,'' says a Dutch housewife who recently moved to Chicago with her husband, a U.S. pharmaceutical company executive. ''Here, we took a weekend trip to Springfield and St. Louis. That 500-mile drive gets you nowhere.'' At the same time, you can also hear plenty of Europeans rave about the scenic beauties of the Maryland shore or the Appalachian foothills, or find Japanese agog at the wide-open spaces of the American West. And if the U.S. does sometimes seem an endless chain of suburbs punctuated with the same McDonald's, Taco Bells, and J.C. Penneys, well, try living in a college town like Durham, North Carolina, or Columbus, Ohio. Or take the view of an Atlanta banker who declares: ''When I look out on Saturday morning, I see the same Snapper lawn mowers and Volvo station wagons purring away. It's plasticville, but I love it!'' The bottom line on quality of life? Tastes differ. But there's no disputing America's real advantage: its sheer economic diversity. In Japan and most of Europe, good jobs are concentrated in a handful of major centers. By contrast, the U.S. offers the world's widest choice of cities combining superb job opportunities with good living at bargain prices. So, Mr. Executive Vice President, remember this the next time you steer that big fat Oldsmobile Cutlass over your wide gravel driveway and hit the remote- control button for your three-car garage: You're savoring the most luxurious lifestyle to be found between Amsterdam and Osaka.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE CREDIT: SOURCE: ORGANIZATION RESOURCES COUNSELORS INC. CAPTION: THE TYPICAL UPPER-MIDDLE MANAGER To construct these budgets, Organization Resources Counselors sampled jobs paying $125,000 in the U.S. and compared them with foreign salaries for similar positions. All numbers reflect current exchange rates, taxes, and prices. For the spending breakdown, ORC used its database to capture na tional differences. Housing takes the biggest bite in the U.S. because homes are much larger. Clothing and groceries cost more abroad, where dining out is both more expensive and less common (fewer wives work). America's gas is cheap, but nowhere else do people own so many cars or drive them so far.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE CREDIT: SOURCE: ORGANIZATION RESOURCES COUNSELORS INC. CAPTION: Cost of goods and services in U.S. dollars: Skip the steak and movies in Osaka. The big bargain in Birmingham is detergent; in Frankfurt it's a Mercedes and -- surprise -- suits. This arbitrary market basket confirms just how much cheaper most things are in the U.S. The glaring exception: Americans pay the world's highest college costs.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE CREDIT: SOURCE: HAY GROUP CAPTION: THE TYPICAL STARTING SALARY At the entry level, the consultants at Hay Group figure German and Japanese managers now earn far more than Americans. High taxes trim that advantage. After adjusting for purchasing power, the Americans' take-home pay still buys the most goods and services.