[raulus]

I’ve said it before, but I’ll repeat it again. I don’t think the speculative term is meaningful when it comes to investments, simply because the line gets really fuzzy at times.

But there’s a definite difference between productive and unproductive assets. Gold, Bitcoin, cardboard, all unproductive assets. Farmland, income-generating companies, etc. fall into the productive bucket.

Certainly there’s nothing wrong with unproductive assets, although some might take offense at the name. Just a different flavor with different characteristics, and a different approach to valuing them. Plus with unproductive assets, you usually can’t get much (economically) from them while you hold onto them. With a productive asset, you might get something while you hold and wait for the right time to sell. But even with productive assets, plenty of them don’t deliver much while you wait for the right time to sell.

As an added challenge, many nonproductive assets, including cardboard, often have ongoing costs to hold them. Even if it’s just storage costs, it’s something. And if you have insurance, the costs are usually more.