Another interesting pattern can be discerned in the Americas. Make a list of the nations in the Americas from richest to poorest. You will find that at the top are the United States and Canada, followed by Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Uruguay, and maybe also Venezuela, depending on the price of oil. After that you have Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Peru. At the bottom there is another distinct, much poorer group, comprising Bolivia, Guatemala, and Paraguay. Go back fifty years, and you’ll find an identical ranking. One hundred years: same thing. One hundred and fifty years: again the same. So it is not just that the United States and Canada are richer than Latin America; there is also a definite and persistent divide between the rich and poor nations within Latin America