Our standard of living today versus 1970s, like comparing apples to oranges.

Has our standard of living improved, or decreased since the 1970s? It's really a case of comparing apples to oranges.

If things like the smartphone's capabilities are counted as wealth, smartphone owners would be able to afford greater information capabilities than multi billion dollar institutions, such as NASA, could afford in the 1970s.

At the same time, something as mundane as having a place to live is less affordable. The capabilities of the smartphone isn't being counted in the GDP the same way that it would have been in the 1970s. Rather than counting it as a multi-million dollar facility, the smartphone can be worth less than one month's rent for a small apartment.

While we have lots more wealth of information at our fingertips, we have to push the economy faster and faster just to keep up with certain necessities that were more taken for granted back in the 1970s.

If one is making their living by selling smartphones, how many does one have to crank out just to pay the rent?

The economy needs to keep running faster and faster just to justify our place on this planet; thus harming us and the planet.

Somehow, we need to find a better way to count the advances we have made, over the years, as wealth.