If you live in Bangladesh and just survived the last typhoon with only the clothes on your body, and are hungry with little prospect of living the next day, you are poor.

If you live in America and are down to your last nickel, you are not poor, and the poor in Bangladesh would gladly trade places with you.

Now, if you are not merely down to your last nickel, but are under water in your mortgage, you are in trouble, and selling your blood to the local blood bank will not do it. One option is to go to the library and use the computer to write your senator or congressman to pass legislation that will cancel your debt, give you free health care, and give you a stipend or a government job that does all three, plus give you free broadband internet access.

“Would it be good policy to render valueless anything of value that the poor own?”

This is the prevailing view, at least among our lords and masters. Then they will assure us all of sustenance and not force us into selling our extra kidney or prostituting ourselves.