Having rich neighbors is great, gdp per Capita seems to be a nice measure.

If you don't make a lot of money in USA you pay basically no taxes... cars are cheap (or were)...

Big problem is govt being terrible with money and overbudensome with regulations, which reduces supply. Think about how many more doctors/specialists we'd have if systems weren't purposefully setup to be ridiculous.

Look into what residency takes. Not everyone has to be an amazing incredible 80hr week doctor. We could easily double supply of doctors...