Absolutely and I pondered a followo up article to this about institutions.

It is not just that the US was blessed with resources. There are as you say other countries which have been blessed with resources.

However the US was settled by the most advanced European nations, Britain and the Netherlands which shaped its institutions.

South America was setttled by Spain and Portugal which has some of the least developed institutions in Europe. Adam Smith remarked on this already in 1776. He was very clear in his predictions that North America would be far more prosperous than South America and Middle America.

Of course one thing is to be give a good start another one is to cease it. But at least we should reckognize that there are other countries which either lacked resources or institutions. Some might have had all but make crucial mistakes.

What I find ironic is that much of what makes Nordic countries great today is what made America so great in the past. When Europeans moved to the US in large numbers it was a continent with very low income inequality compared to the rest of the world.

E.g. in Adam Smiths time, the GDP per capita of Britain was higher than the US. Yet regular working man wages were 3-4 times higher in the US.

That could happen because there was such a massive shortage of labour relative to land and other resources. As the US has become populated and there is no more free land, Europe and the US have ended up swapping roles. The US used to be far more egalitarian than Europe, but now the US is one of the most unequal developed countries in the world.

And I don't feel most Amricans are really aware of that this swap happened. I think many thing the relative difference between Europe and America has always been there. I don't think they realize we have swapped roles.