[wyager]

> whilst people are getting poorer their access to resources has been scaling well enough to keep them above the poverty line

Defining poverty as "wealth relative to the richest person on earth" or whatever you're doing here is unproductive crab-bucket envy, not a useful definition. If you're talking about wealth, all that matters is if the baseline is going up. If you're talking about status, be honest and say that explicitly instead of dressing it up as a wealth issue.

[anonymous_sorry]

Wealth distribution is important, because very rich people disproportionately buy up limited-supply assets in order to earn passive income on them. In densely populated places, that includes assets like homes, which pushes up housing costs.

Housing costs often aren't included in popular measures of inflation. If you do use an inflation measure that includes housing and all other everyday expenditure, then I think it's a reasonable to argue the baseline going up is good enough.

[robertlagrant]

Unless someone buys up so many properties they can start unilaterally increasing prices, the problem with housing going up isn't rich people buying them and renting them at a market rate. It's the amount of demand vs supply that does it.

And you're right - this is possibly the single biggest issue that's a downgrade for people vs their parents/grandparents, and it's a huge one. But the problem needs to be attributed correctly.

[anonymous_sorry]

More very rich people looking for somewhere to park their money and earn returns means more competition when you want to buy a home.

I agree it doesn't necessarily mean rents rises. You might actually expect higher price to earnings ratio with more wealthy people competing to buy assets (see also stocks).

But it will lead to the shrinking of the home-owning middle class.

That's not to say there isn't also a problem with lack of supply.

[Hikikomori]

Well you have hedge fund money buying homes and stuff like this: https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-r...

Seems to be mostly an American problem, like many others.

[Festro]

I think you missed my definition by a wide mile.

On a world-scale we've been reducing the overall number of people below the poverty line each decade, however there is a discussion to be had around inflation and whether the poverty line itself needs to move (there a re lots of poverty lines used in analysis, I'm not referring to any single definition).

And I'm not talking specifically about wealth. Wealth is fine in a vacuum. Looking at excessive wealth and means to recirculating it can be helpful when addressing the issues the poorest people in society are facing.

And I'm not talking about status, no idea how you got that impression. I'm re-reading my comment and trying to figure out where you got that fantasy from.

[Earw0rm]

Isn't the most useful definition of rich/poor how much access to resources you can buy?

As in, how can someone be both getting poorer but also enjoying increasing access to resources? Buying power is a pretty good measure here unless I've missed something?

(I'm talking about this in a global context where we can assume asset wealth is pretty much negligible, i.e. it's not a case of people burning through savings to access resources)

[Festro]

I agree, but in practise this has been difficult to measure, thus the existence of 'poverty lines' which have been defined as $1/day, $2/day etc, and been fairly static for a long time.

For a poverty line definition then, as I mentioned, we can observe fewer people being below the poverty line as time goes on, but we're ignoring inflation and buying power. Fewer people being under the $1/day poverty line is great, unless essential purchases have doubled in price.

What we've seen in recent decades has been a mix of inflation and basic resources becoming more assessible/cheaper. So when I say people are getting poorer, I'm saying poverty lines ignore this the access angle unless they adjust for inflation, but then also counter to that some essentials have become more accessible, like access to medicine, education and energy. So whilst buying power may get worse for some, they're 'wealthier' in terms of things that they have increased cost-free/low-cost access to.

There have been attempts to use definitions that do adjust for access but they're a lot more difficult to normalise across countries. Something like the Big Mac Index is a quick and dirty tool but obviously it focusses on a single item in a single category (food) so it can't provide a very detailed picture of access to resources, buying power, and poverty on the whole.

[Earw0rm]

Ok,that makes sense. My country (UK) uses a definition of poverty that's based on a % of median household income, which doesn't tell you anything about buying power.

If your income is below 60% of median, you're in poverty per the government's definition.