Signs of Collapse: When Investors Realize All Stocks and Bonds Are Mostly Worthless

Now that the collapse of our political, economic, social and ecological systems is accelerating, the signs of this collapse, including scapegoating, corruption, and social disorder are becoming more obvious. This is the eighteenth of a series of articles on some of these signposts. Stocks and bonds and mortgages and title deeds are all claims on real, hard, usable assets. Their technical value rests entirely on (a) the reasonable certainty that the investors can get their invested cash back, with interest, dividends, and (hopefully) capital appreciation, by selling them or waiting until they ‘mature’ and are cashed out automatically, less (b) a discount that reflects the risk that the issuer will default on interest or capital repayment, or that the investment’s market price will decline rather than appreciate, or that their cash will be worth less when they get it back. The problem with this theoretical value is that anything is worth exactly what people are prepared to pay for it,…