Only countries with snowfall are wealthy. Why?

After rapid growth in the early years of the century emerging markets have slowed down. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index nearly quadrupled between 2002 and 2010 but has fallen 10% since. Brazil and Russia are in recession while China is having to prop up its stock market. Ruchir Sharma, head of emerging markets at Morgan Stanley says," Very few emerging markets historically have ever been able to make to the developed countries. This is a return to normalcy." Why? Europe developed by looting colonies while the US had vast natural resources, which it developed with cheap slave labor. Japan, South Korea and China became rich by developing mass industrialisation, producing cheaper imitations of western products. However, what all rich countries have in common is that they are relatively colder and have snowfall in winter. Even in Europe the warmer countries in the south, Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal are not as rich as the colder northern countries, such as Germany and Finland. That is not to say that all cold countries are rich. Argentina and Russia are extremely cold but not rich. So a combination of snow and exploitation is the secret of becoming wealthy as a nation. Emerging markets did so well in the early years because of low interest rates in the US. A lot of dollars were invested in emerging markets to earn higher returns. This pushed up local currencies, keeping inflation in check. The rupee rose to 39 to the dollar in 2007. Central banks bought dollars to keep local currencies from appreciating too much and also to build up reserves in case capital started flowing out. Firms went on a borrowing binge which they may find difficult to repay if the US interest rate rises, leading to a stronger dollar. After the crash of 2008 the US dropped interest rate to near zero and resorted to quantitative easing, which is another term for dollar devaluation. This distorted the world because dollar is a reserve currency and the US can print as many as it likes, knowing that central banks in other countries will be frantically buying dollars to prevent it from falling too far. Now that the US economy is growing and the Federal Reserve is poised to increase interest rate all other currencies are falling. This pushes up inflation and forces countries to increase interest rates, cutting growth. Seems that Austrian economists believe that central banks are responsible for bubbles, market crashes and recessions. They predicted inflation in the US and a return to the gold standard. Others may hoot in derision but maybe instead of inflation in the US it was manifest as disinflation elsewhere. Gold rose to near $1700 an ounce before retreating. The US has experienced 12 boom-bust cycles in 1940. Maybe, at each cycle rich countries will settle lower so that after decades they will also become middle income countries. Global warming will make snowfall less anyway.