For the first time ever, the number of poor people is declining everywhere

"Isn't this just a capitalist supporting publication trying to justify that which it supports?"

This is pretty close to ad hominem. No substance, just casting aspersions on the Economist's character.

I mean the wealth of one person in 1800, is relative to the wealth of another person in 1800. Likewise for today.

So perhaps comparing the wealth of people in 1800 to today isn't actually that productive, because the baseline has increased?

I think maybe my view of economics is flawed. My basic premise was that traditionally cost has traditionally been defined by scarcity of an item / service and consumer demand. In which case there's no limit to scarcity (say through sale of IP) how can the system work without bubbles developing / the economic system breaking down?

Likewise how can everyone be wealthy when wealth is measured relatively? (i.e. how wealthy you are is defined by how wealthy your neighbour is).

I think I need to read a bit about economics in general.

EDIT: prosperity -> wealth.

because you were a foreigner, a guest, an attraction.

i went to iceland and only found nice, cheerful people. i am from austria, so did blend in a bit. if you're nordic and visiting uganda your appearance alone makes you something special and easily recognized (and potentially wealthy, so treating you nice might pay off).

that's why being a short-term visitor teaches you practically nothing about a culture. you need to live and work there to actually see the true nature of everyday people, you're novelty needs to wear off.

exceptions to this exist, some cultures simply treat foreigners/tourists badly. classic viennese coffee houses have some of the most irritating waiters on earth, embodying the anti-thesis to the US-services-smile. try getting a cheque in under 5min, i dare you :)

Let me start by saying that although I work in academia in a field where I work with these issues from time to time, I am by no mean an expert in any sense of the word, although I do work with people who are - but in those cases I just do what they say, we're not 'equals' or anything. I'm just saying: I'm not arguing from authority here, no do I want to give off that impression.

The link to the original source in your link is dead, so I'm not quite sure which paper they're talking about, but it sounds like the conclusions in the 'third phase' that I described. Issues are obviously much more complex than just 'make 1000 USD more to feel a lot happier', but I'd be surprised if the study would find a real plateau after 75K, rather than a tapered off increase per dollar amount. Some studies have plots that show relationships on a logarithmic scale (after a 'baseline' cutoff point, e.g. 30k or 50k), making it much move obvious that there is a continually rising correlation (or, to put it more bluntly, that yes, more money does make you 'happier', for certain definitions of 'happy'). Of course there are all sorts of methodological issues at that point, comparing between regions, across cultures, etc etc.

Let me put it this way. There are studies who conclude that e.g. people who own 5 million are happier than those who own 100k. This is easily explained: 5 million makes you 'independently wealthy', taking away the stress from having to hold a job to provide subsistence. Do people who make 75k a year typically have 5 million? No. Would it be reasonable to assume that somebody making top 1% in a community would have the same level of happiness than somebody else in that same community who makes double? Yes. So it's all in what you measure and compare. I'm sure the authors of the article referenced in your link acknowledge that, but that they just had a much more narrow research question; a question that lead to the magic number of 75k within the confines of their research. Those nuances get lost in the AP summary, then again in the WSJ summary, then even worse in the headline. I mean the WSJ blurb even acknowledges that happiness does continue to rise even after 75k.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, just that your link does describe an increasing effect after 75k and not a 'hard' plateau, so yes it's consistent with what I posted before.

There appear to be some non-infinite limits on some components of standard of living, though. For example, if you extrapolate the resources Americans and Western Europeans use per capita (water, electricity, oil, etc.) to the entire world's population, you at the very least have some serious technological challenges to avoid hitting limits. If technology isn't able to keep up fast enough, it could introduce a bit of a zero-sum element, where a wealthier developing world would put downward pressure on the developed world's standard of living, in that the amount of resources available to an average American might decrease faster than can be offset by technological improvements.

That's some of the current worry with oil, that increased consumption by China et al will mean that oil is more expensive in real terms, and alternatives won't appear fast enough, meaning that Americans' overall standard of living will decrease, as they're forced to either make do with less oil (and stuff oil is an input to), or forego other luxuries to pay for the oil (and indirect-oil).

Past poverty levels, "wealth" becomes much more relative in that it involves wages, imo: a measure of whether you're "well off" is whether you can afford to pay people to do things for you, whether it's clean your house, serve you in a restaurant, tend to your cruise ship, design your website, or work for your company. That definitely depends on relative rather than absolute numbers, with a bigger differential meaning that you can buy more hours of other people's time.