Dear Wagner Matos,

Last week, I argued that the most American thing you may someday do is leave America.

I told you not to stay simply because that is where you happened to be born.

Instead, compare the trade-offs honestly – and go wherever you believe you will be treated best.

But I ended that letter with a confession:

For the things I value, I still believe the best place is the United States.

At least for now.

Today, I want to explain why.

It is not because America has the lowest taxes.

America does not have the lowest taxes, cheapest healthcare, or best public schools (more on this next week).

And despite all our talk about liberty, we currently rank 22nd in the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom.

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So no, America does not win every category.

But when I consider the entire package, one advantage stands above everything else:

The United States Remains One of the Best Places On Earth to Create Wealth

There are approximately 23.6 million millionaires living in the United States.

That is more than 40% of all the millionaires in the world.

Americans make up less than 4% of the global population…

Yet more than 4 in 10 of the world’s millionaires live here – a concentration roughly ten times the global baseline.

And this is not simply old money sitting around from the so-called “good old days”.

In 2025 alone, the United States added more than 441,000 new millionaires – roughly half the global increase.

Now, being a millionaire today does not necessarily mean private jets, yachts and champagne.

For many Americans, that wealth is tied up in a home, retirement accounts and investments accumulated over decades.

But that actually strengthens the argument.

We are not talking about 23 million oligarchs who control oil fields and have the president on speed dial.

Most are fairly ordinary people who earned money, spent less than they made and slowly turned the difference into ownership.

They cannot all be smarter than you, and they certainly did not all inherit their wealth.

Of course, their results do not guarantee yours.

But if your goal is to build wealth, it might be a good idea to go where people are being minted into millionaires faster than anywhere else.

I’m not saying that money is not the be-all and end-all (it isn’t).

But whether your goal is protecting your family or helping other people, wealth gives you more power to pursue it.

And as the numbers show…

America remains unusually good at helping people acquire wealth.

But What Lies Behind the American Advantage?

Some countries offer a stronger floor.

They may provide cheaper healthcare, more reliable public transport or a larger safety net if your life falls apart.

America’s advantage is the ceiling.

The range of possible outcomes is wider here, and there are more ways to climb.

You can build wealth through a high-paying career, sales, skilled trades, public markets, property or business ownership.

If one city or state stops working for you, there are dozens of alternatives inside the same country.

Before an American has to leave America, he can often leave California for Texas, New York for Florida or Illinois for Tennessee.

You can change your taxes, housing costs, local regulations and business environment without changing your citizenship, currency or access to the national economy.

That optionality has enormous value.

Then there is the network effect created by all the wealth that already exists here.

23 million millionaires is not some abstract statistic.

They are customers, investors and employers.

They fund businesses, hire people and buy what entrepreneurs create.

That means, in America, ambitious people are unusually close to the capital and customers they need.

And America does not produce all that ambition domestically.

It imports plenty of it.

The person who leaves his home country, moves thousands of miles away and rebuilds his life from scratch has already demonstrated a willingness to accept risk.

America has spent generations attracting those people.

In fact, 46.2% of the companies on the 2025 Fortune 500 were founded by immigrants or their children.

America’s secret ingredient may be that the rest of the world keeps sending it people who are willing to bet on themselves.

Once they arrive, they enter a culture that still gives people permission to be openly ambitious.

That is not universal.

In other Western countries such as Britain and Australia, success is often met with what they call “tall poppy syndrome” – the instinct to cut down anyone who rises too far above the crowd.

America has some of that too.

But culturally, we are still far more comfortable with people saying they want to build something enormous, become wealthy or completely reinvent themselves.

As Elon Musk once said:

Once here, they can find investors, hire talent and turn university research into companies that reach millions of customers.

That ecosystem has been compounding for generations.

But there is another ingredient that economists have studied.

You see, every country has intelligent, driven people.

The Question Is Where The System Directs That Ambition

Economist William Baumol distinguished between productive entrepreneurship and unproductive entrepreneurship.

Productive entrepreneurs get rich by creating something people voluntarily choose to buy.

Unproductive entrepreneurs pursue wealth through what economists call rent-seeking – using political influence to secure licenses, subsidies, government contracts or protection from competition.

America has plenty of rent-seeking too.

We have lobbyists, special favors and companies that spend more effort manipulating Washington than serving customers.

But compared with much of the world, America still directs an unusually large share of its ambition towards productive entrepreneurship.

That means building products, starting businesses and creating value for people who are free to say no.

That is a huge advantage.

This Does Not Mean America is Perfect

You can find countries with lower taxes…

Cleaner streets…

Better public services…

Or less violent crime.

But you do not live inside one statistic.

You live inside the entire package.

A country may offer no income tax – but also a tiny market for your business.

Another may offer cheap living – but lower wages, weaker property rights or fewer opportunities.

America has serious problems too.

Its schools can be terrible. Healthcare is expensive and bureaucratic. Some cities are dangerous. And government intrusion keeps growing.

But America gives an unusually large number of people the chance to build enough wealth that they do not have to accept the default.

If the schools are failing, you can move, homeschool, or pay for better options.

If your city is badly governed, you can leave without abandoning the broader opportunity system.

And while American healthcare can be maddening…

Those with the resources to access it can still reach some of the best hospitals, specialists and medical technology in the world.

So no – America does not guarantee the best version of every system.

But it gives you one of the best chances to earn enough that you do not have to settle for the default.

That does not excuse bad institutions.

It also does very little for the person who cannot yet afford to opt out.

I am simply pointing out that the ceiling available to the individual remains extraordinarily high.

And plenty of the differences between countries will never appear on an economic-freedom chart.

When I was driving in England, I kept seeing what looked like a little coffee cup appear on the dashboard of my rental car.

Eventually I noticed it happened after I yawned.

The car was watching me closely enough to detect that I might be tired, then recommending that I pull over and rest.

Some people would call that a useful safety feature.

To me, it felt like Big Brother had climbed into the passenger seat.

Would that alone determine where I live? Of course not.

But countries accumulate thousands of little conveniences, restrictions and intrusions. Over time, they shape your life.

Some are easy to notice. Others only spring to mind when something goes wrong.

Energy is a good example.

Americans rarely think about abundant electricity, heating and air conditioning because we assume they will always be available.

Yet during severe heat waves, tens of thousands of people can and do die even in so-called “developed” countries.

In Terms of the Full Package, America Still Wins

So yes, I can find places that beat America in individual categories.

But for the time being, none of them combines opportunity, scale, capital and choice as effectively as the United States.

That is the trade-off I am choosing.

I did not choose to be born here.

But I have considered the alternatives, and I have the ability to leave.

For now, I choose America.

That could change.