I dont think your right. I've been in Bangalore for 2 months and its hard to decide where I have a better quality of life. Here I can rent a brand new 3 bedroom with gym and swimming pool for $400. Driver for $200 a month. Hospitals are cheaper and about as well equipped. You get all channels including HBO for $5 a month. Savings rate in a CD is 10%.
With the rampant unemployment in the US - I cant see why you would consider the US to be the higher quality of life right now.
Remember we're talking about the top 1% or 0.1% of the population here. The unemployment rate simply doesn't enter their quality of life equation. But quality of life is a big deal for rich people.
There are a number of surveys (Mercer, Economist, International Living etc) that rank countries according to quality of life factors and it's always the same places at the top of the list: Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand, North America, maybe Singapore and Japan. These are all, unsuprisingly, expensive places to live.
Wealthy people immigrating is a global phenomenon too; a few months ago there was a spate of news articles regarding rich Chinese looking to get out of China due to the low quality of life (eg http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2077139,00.htm...).
If we are talking the top 1% then they can buy a building in Bangalore and put a helipad on it to fly them to the airport where they can travel wherever they want.
Ambani bought himself a building and a helipad to commute to his office. That way you've fixed the commute problem too.
Bangalore weather is also pretty awesome. I wish I had my kite and board ... its been windy the whole past month ...
With the rampant unemployment in the US - I cant see why you would consider the US to be the higher quality of life right now.