Market failure

“Fictitious capital” is a term for the kind of wealth that exists on paper but which is susceptible to simply disappearing when there is a market failure. If you sell it or invest it in something actually productive, well, you’re doing well. But if you hold it until the market fails – and markets always fail, eventually – all that “wealth” you had simply goes away. It had no real productive value when left unused.

So too with a pumpkin, taken in from the doorstep after Hallowe’en, and planned by its owners to be put in a soup. A soup that was never produced. Finally, the owner (that was me, by the way) discovered a soft spot and realised the pumpkin wasn’t fit to eat anymore. So he (I) put it on the back doorstep until, uhh, I can get it into the compost pile.

And it has collapsed, like so much fictitious capital.

Mind you, I *will* get it into the compost, and it will be productive. But that’s sort of like saying that you can turn your bankruptcy to some good by writing a memoir of your losses.