It's not all about finance. From my recent visits to Mexico everyone there seems much happier and friendlier than in the US and Europe. It was honestly quite striking. I have no theory what causes this (maybe large families?), but it was really quite obvious.

I have an unsubstantiated theory that people in Latin America largely realize their institutions are completely broken or ineffectual, thus they and their local community are on their own in life. Thus it is pointless to be angry about a lot of things people in other places are angry about (corruption, government, immigrants, prices, corporations, etc) because it's a total lost cause, it's not like they could vote it away even if they tried. The end result is their sphere of worries basically are constrained to their immediate family, work, and community all of which are things they not only have control over but actually probably will care about them.