It's the economy, stupid!!!

The economy is the sum of all the decisions made by people. "Wealth" is relative term of value, not a fixed amount available (see "fixed pie fallacy"). You can tell how the economy is doing by which way prices are going on their own. You can also tell how it's going by how much government meddling they do.

Y=C+I+G

Our output is consumption (people spending) + investment (putting money to work) + government spending (it exists and it spends...but it does NOT create).

Price controls CAUSE problems, they do not fix them. Argentina just got RID of theirs.