November 28, 2025
Cash or cows?
How wealth dies
How Wealth Dies: commenters argue cash, mortgages, or farms
TLDR: An energy-focused essay says financial wealth is mostly imaginary and could peak right before the system crashes. Comments ignited: practical readers ask whether to hold cash or pay mortgages, “buy a farm” becomes a meme, and skeptics call it nonsense—turning a gloomy forecast into a lively split-screen debate.
In a doom-scroll-worthy post from Surplus Energy Economics, the author claims our “wealth” is mostly pretend: money keeps growing while the real world of stuff and energy stalls. The kicker? He warns notional riches could hit a final high right as the monetary system face-plants. Cue the comments, where the drama outpaced the footnotes. One camp’s nodding along: energy costs are rising, GDP is just transactions, and a last bubble before collapse sounds… plausible.
Then the thread detonated. User 0xWTF begged for straight talk—“cash, pay the mortgage, QQQ stocks, or T‑notes?”—turning replies into a finance speed dating session. mkoubaa sparked the meme of the day: “just buy a farm,” which evolved into prepper chic fantasies of chickens > charts. measurablefunc backed the essay, name-checking Nate Hagens and EROI (energy return on investment) to argue money can’t conjure more fuel. Meanwhile, cyberax pushed back, saying the piece assumes a too-simple link between GDP and “material prosperity.” And hapless torched the whole thing with a brutal takedown: “Complete and utter horseshit.” Humor popped up with “E) there is no E. I am a simple man,” as the crowd split between apocalypse planners and eye-rollers. Whether you’re clutching cash or shopping for tractors, this thread was pure chaos—and very online.
Key Points
- •The article argues financial wealth has risen despite decelerating material economic growth, creating a monetary–material disequilibrium.
- •It cites UK ONS data showing national net worth near £12.2 trillion (about 450% of GDP) as evidence of soaring measured wealth.
- •The author asserts monetary interventions to counter material decline inflate financial wealth, while much of this wealth is notional and non-convertible into material value.
- •A possible sequence described is an initial correction, a final asset-market rebound, followed by collapse.
- •The SEEDS model’s ECoE metric is highlighted, with ECoE rising from 2.0% in 1980 to 11.3% today, constraining material prosperity; GDP is characterized as transactional activity rather than material value creation.