[ryandrake]

> But I'm having a hard time reconciling this observation with the fact that we are so much richer as a society than we were in say 1970. Presumably even the poorer people are, in absolute terms, wealthier than they were then.

Is this really true though? Yes, in 1970, we did not have computers in our pockets, fine. But, in 1970, my parents owned their own home in their 20s just from the tiny salary of a single school teacher. They financed their educations without loans. They had easy and cheap access to health care. Their day-to-day costs still allowed them to save money. They had a strong safety net and a local community that cared.

We don't have any of that today, but we do have billionaires skewing the "average" higher and higher. I wouldn't say that anyone but them are in real terms wealthier today than in 1970.