I have had this investment for nearly 20 years now, and my grandfather had it for decades before that. I know that it pays out every year within a fairly narrow range like a metronome. But the other partners will only offer four or five years’ worth of payouts for it. I would have to be idiotic or desperate to sell at that rate. But since there is no open trading market for these partnerships, I can only theoretically sell it to someone who is not already a partner. As in: “Do you want to buy this weird type of investment you never heard of? It’s a great deal, I promise: you’ll make about 10% return per year” (I can’t conceive of selling it for less than 10 years worth of payments and even that would hurt given the low interest paid out for other forms of steady income producing instruments these days). Pffft, good luck. No, it’s something I’m just effectively stuck with.
See above. If I withdrew and invested the proceeds in something else, my return would be almost certainly a tiny fraction of what it is now unless I got really lucky with a small cap stock or something.
But I’m not providing it. As Linus K keeps pointing out, what’s really happening is that the government is enforcing an abstract concept that I am “providing” it even though I have never been there, I make no decisions that impact anything about the way the buildings are maintained or managed, and I was not yet born when they were originally built. It’s not too great a leap from this arrangement to the classic feudal scenario where, because my grandfather was Lord of Amherst (NY), I have inherited the right to be paid rent by all peasants living within the village over which we claim dominion. It’s absurd, but we are just used to it.
No, I specifically noted things that will still be scarce, like land in desirable locations and for that matter a desirable table at a chic restaurant. But I am positing a scenario where many of the things we think of as having significant value and thus scarcity now, like electronics for instance, will not at that point be scarce. Manufactured goods, as long as you have the space to store them, will be cheap as air is now, as will be the energy to operate them.
Perhaps, but my bet would be on them disappearing later. If they go first, it will likely be a transition involving much more turmoil. If large swaths of the population are unemployable but are part on the dole, that gives them purchasing power to maintain demand for items manufactured with increasing levels of automation. The rich people who own the means of production and some of the managerial class that help organise that production will increasingly find that their riches are mainly good for things like land in nice locations as I have stated.
This kind of transition is already happening to a degree. The percentage of the population in the workforce is smaller than it ever has been; yet many people who are unemployed have things like smart phones. They don’t however live in a nice neighborhood or take swanky vacations.
