Is Time Travel Treasure Hunting A Viable Economic Strategy?

Are there people in Latveria living below the poverty line?

I saw scans of some fairly recent comic online where some - Loki? Magneto? - was in Latveria and made a comment to the effect nobody there would be living in poverty if Doom would stop focusing on. . . something. I forget what. Weapons, or destroying Reed Richards, most likely.

That seemed off to me. Mostly because I can't picture Doom allowing anyone to be homeless, starving, or generally struggling to get by in his country. If one was charitable, they could argue it was because Doom remembers some of the rough times his family experienced in his childhood, under the former monarch. It's more probable though, that he wouldn't allow it because it would make him look bad. He wants Latveria to look like a model country, which to him probably means peaceful, stable, no serious sickness or malnutrition issues. It would ignore things like freedom, but eh, what do they need freedom for? They have Doom to make all the important decisions for them.

I don't know whether that would manifest as him making certain everyone has employment opportunities at a liveable wage, or if he opts for the approach Switzerland approved not too long ago, where every citizen gets a certain amount of money each year from the government, but they can supplement that with other jobs if they want. I'm guessing the former. I imagine Doom employs a lot of people as spies among his own citizenry (to say nothing of in the military), even though he has electronic means to accomplish the same thing.

Although how the people of Latveria are portrayed varies on the writer. A lot of times they're shown as living in constant fear, afraid to say almost anything, always looking over their shoulder to see if Doom is listening. But other times, they're shown as truly loving Doom, because at least they know they're safe from the bigger, aggressive nations that surround them. Also, I'd assume famine and plagues are not going to be an issue, again, because I can't see Doom allowing his country to be plagued with problems like that, lest outsiders believe he can't solve them. I know when it appeared Doom had died and taken Richards with him in DeFalco's FF run, the citizens started pelting the FF with rocks, yelling about how they were destined to be conquered without him. On the scale of "freedom versus security", Latveria rarely has much of the former, but it's variable how much they regret that.

I'd also guess there aren't a lot of people in jail, mostly because I can't imagine anyone stupid enough to think committing a crime in Dr. Doom's country. Yeah, I'm going to rob a liquor store in a country with an army of something called "Doombots". Probably a fair number of political prisoners, but I might not be giving Doom enough credit. In the 2099 universe, there was a stretch where Doom became President of the United States (couldn't be worse than having it run by Alchemax and the other mega-corporations). At one point Spider-Man 2099 sees some of Doom's soldiers rousting some guys protesting Doom (the protesters also worship Spider-Man). Miguel intervenes, then Doom appears and says it's fine if they protest, peacefully, even arranges so they have an exclusive permit to do so. So when the protestors show up at the approved time, all the bystanders are musing what a swell guy Doom is to let them bad mouth him that way, and what's their problem? He pulled the floor right out from under them, but maybe that comes with an additional century of experience.