The New York Times on how to raise living standards

There isn’t a big mystery about how to reduce inequality and lift living standards for most Americans. Raising taxes on the wealthy, which are historically low, and devoting the money to everyone else would make a real difference.

~ The New York Times, May 2, 2021

Mark Weisbrot on how Venezuela nationalizing its oil industry led to improved living standards

Since the Chávez government got control over the national oil industry, poverty has been cut by half, and extreme poverty by 70 percent. College enrollment has more than doubled, millions of people have access to health care for the first time and the number of people eligible for public pensions has quadrupled.

So it should not be surprising that most Venezuelans would reelect a president who has improved their living standards. That’s what has happened with all of the leftist governments that now govern most of South America. This is despite the fact that they, like Chávez, have most of their countries’ media against them, and their opposition has most of the wealth and income of their respective countries.

~ Mark Weisbrot, "Why Chávez Was Re-elected," The New York Times, October 9, 2012

Ludwig von Mises on living standards and culture

A higher standard of living also brings about a higher standard of culture and civilization.

~ Ludwig von Mises, Economic Policy

Ludwig Von Mises on higher living standards (message to Ayn Rand)

You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: you are inferior and all the improvements in your conditions which you simply take for granted you owe to the efforts of men who are better than you.

~ Ludwig Von Mises to Ayn Rand

Fred Hickey on unsustainable living standards

Dr. Bernanke has unwittingly helped create a monster, an 'Abby Normal' world economy where excessive government interventions keep market forces from clearing the imbalances. Most of the developed world countries consume too much, produce too little, retire too early and borrow too much in an attempt to sustain ultimately unsustainable standards of living. That's true in Greece, Spain and England, as well as in the United States.

~ Fred Hickey, editor, The High-Tech Strategist, June 4, 2010