10,000% improvement in lifestyle

I was watching a roundtable relating to the world business meet in Davos the other day, where Singaporean academic and author Kishore Mahbubani revealed that in the next 50 years some citizens of some Asian countries would see a 10,000% improvement in living standards. He contrasted that to improvements of 100% in 50 years in Europe during the Industrial Revolution.

One wonders, what does 10,000% improvement mean in real terms? Two square meals a day from not even one square meal a week? A roof over one’s head? Not getting raped? An improvement of that magnitude cannot be possible unless the person’s present status is worse than a mangy dog’s, can it!