This is not true. To follow your example, if everyone around me is 10x wealthier, then the market adjusts and everything around me rises in price accordingly. T

This is not true. To follow your example, if everyone around me is 10x wealthier, then the market adjusts and everything around me rises in price accordingly. This is the essence of gentrification. To your point, if the minimum wage in a lot of areas is $15, then why aren’t there any decent houses selling for $30k anymore like they were back in the 50’s? $15/hr is quite wealthy by those standards but it is becoming pretty poor nowadays. The problem with wealth is that we tend to measure it by the concrete dollar amount in our bank account and not the purchasing power it represents.