Tangibly related.

IMO the North America economic-societal "model" is High cost + More regulation. Everything is legal and proved by some experts, and regulated to the maximum, but in reality they also build moats after moats for existing interest groups (landlords, insurance companies, big contractors, etc.).

And everyone thinks this is the right model for "democracy" and "ruled by law". People may blame for part of the model (e.g. landlords) but never realize that the whole model is built to support this.

This is my observation so definitely biased.

California < USA < North America.