Value for money

"People are required to buy more things with the same income."

That's from a discussion at the Telegraph of Philip Blond's approach to poverty and equality (hawk, spit).

This kind of language simply makes me tired. For a start, is it 'are required' - or 'require'? Who are these passive people who 'are required' to do things by... some mysterious malign force?

Secondly, how much longer will the bien pensant pundit class preach the blinkered partial view which ignores all historical perspective on trade and has no clue about the value of goods and how that value is arrived at?

Calculation of the extent to which the statement at the top of this post represents a (growing?) problem (if it does... does it?) must take into account the vastly reduced end-user cost of many of those 'more things' (aka desirable goods) as a result of improved/increased global trade following the introduction of computers and low cost travel/shipping, and the availability of a vast and growing global pool of labour thanks to improved diet, medicine and education, which delivers goods (a) in huge quantities and therefore (b) at low cost.

The cost of food, clothing and essential (and non-essential) domestic goods, relative to income, has fallen beyond the imagining of predecessor generations so that they now cost a tiny fraction of average income. Think IKEA. Think Primark. Think Tesco. Think Ebay.