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I don't know how you would measure a nation's standard of living, but the following information from www.worldfactsandfigures.com offers a comparison of per-capita GDP (which I admit is not necessarily an accurate measure of a nation's standard of living).

1. Luxembourg $ 44,000
2. United States $ 37,600
3. Bermuda $ 35,200
4. Cayman Islands $ 35,000
5. San Marino $ 34,600
6. Norway $ 31,800
7. Switzerland $ 31,700
8. Ireland $ 30,500
9. Canada $ 29,400
10. Belgium $ 29,000
11. Denmark $ 29,000
12. Aruba $ 28,000
13. Japan $ 28,000
14. Austria $ 27,700
15. Australia $ 27,000
16. Monaco $ 27,000
17. Netherlands $ 26,900
18. Germany $ 26,600
19. Finland $ 26,200
20. Hong Kong $ 26,000

If you were to measure a nation's standard of living by the quantity of products and services its citizens enjoy relative to the citizens of other nations, I would venture to guess that the U.S. would be at the top of this list by a very wide margin. Even many people living at the poverty line in this country own things like cars, home electronics, satellite dishes, computers, etc. in numbers that exceed most of the world's countries.

Japan remains an export economy, by the way.

Which makes sense if their largest customer is the United States (or any other country above them on the list I provided). What makes this a little fuzzy is the way exports/imports may be tallied in Japan and the United States. A Toyota that is manufactured in Ohio and sold in California may be counted as a Japanese "export" even though it was built by U.S. labor and never left the United States.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Millions of illegal migrant farmers, hotel maids and others working in the shadows of American society would be granted legal status and freed from the threat of deportation under an election-year proposal President Bush wants Congress to approve.

Bush called Mexican President Vicente Fox to brief him Wednesday morning in advance of Bush's speech later in the day at the White House.

"There are some jobs in this country, in our growing economy, that Americans are not filling," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. "That presents an opportunity for workers from abroad who want to work."

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040107/D7VU379O2.html

You begin by saying that you don't know how I would measure a nation's standard of living, but, you strangle me in numbers, which you yourself admit are "not necessarily an accurate measure of a nation's standard of living," so, I'll extend you the courtesy of ignoring your post.