Why did the economies of the United States and Latin America develop in different ways?

Question

It's a study question

Answer 1

I think that at it's basic core, the difference is that the people who came to the United States came to start a new life.  The people who went to Latin America went to see what they could take for themselves and back to Spain.  They didn't think beyond what they could see immediately.  That kind of thinking prevails.   In Latin America people continue to think that in order to "make it" they have to go somewhere else.  I was raised that way and here I am, among many others, as oppossed to teaching us that we have the responsibility to contribute something to our countries.

Answer 2

United States threw out the Colonizers early on.  They had foreign intervention and was allowed to determine their own fate.  Latin America remained the province of Spain until later on.  Latin America is not as resource rich as the United States, it is also very difficult terrain.  Railroads and regular roads had trouble being established.  Take for example France's canal project, it failed due to Malaria and the expensive proccess of moving into Jungle.  

Latin America did not Industrialize, Railroads were ineffectively established, the nations resources are difficult to extract.  Farming is impossible to compare to the United States.  Jungle has very poor soil which is acidic, so the crops are difficult to cultivate.

Answer 3

Basically it comes from the difference between the English Puritan work ethic versus the entrenched Spanish system of administration where graft and corruption was institutionalized....aided and abetted by the Catholic Church.