Inflation

So how rich is rich?

The value of money changes inexorably over time, even in decades and centuries of low inflation. Economists and historians now have so many methods of evaluating the comparative worth of money over long periods that the exercise has become virtually meaningless to all but specialists. Meaningless because of the changes in the quality and range of goods available, the earning power of immediate and foreign neighbors, the importance (or otherwise) of the preservation of ancestral assets like land and art, and a host of other factors.