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Regenerative versus Depreciating Assets in the World Balance Sheet

12/8/2017

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I've been musing on how to classify various assets on the World Balance Sheet, and whether collecting assets under headings of "Regenerative" and its opposite "Depreciating" would be helpful.  And even whether some things should be on the Asset side of the World Balance Sheet or on the Liabilities/Commitments side, or should be excluded from the Balance Sheet altogether.  Some things are obvious.  For example, Natural Capital is a Regenerative Asset and almost all buildings are Depreciating Assets.  But some things are less obvious.

​Military hardware?  If it is capable of being used for humanitarian purposes, or for 'keeping the peace', then it can be  an Asset, albeit a Depreciating Asset.  But if it's used in an actual conflict where it facilitates death, injury and destruction of other assets?  If it is used in such a way, then this is a sign of failure (of measures to secure peace) and should be considered a cost of failure, not an asset delivering value.  Not easy to work out what to put in the Balance Sheet for that one.
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​People? Certainly a Regenerative Asset.  But also, we need to put on the Commitments side of the Balance Sheet a commitment to provide for the basic needs of all of humanity.

​Money?  I see money, in this context, as a unit of measurement, not an asset in its own right.  This is because money instruments used as savings (a store of wealth) are actually promissory notes between two parties - with a national bank (eg  the Bank of England as a UK example) being one party and the saver being the other.  The promissory note could be included on the Balance Sheet of the saver as an asset, but on the Balance Sheet of the bank, it would be a liability of equal amount.  Therefore, if we were to combine the Balance Sheets of all savers and all national banks, as part of the process of compiling the World Balance Sheet, all the promissory notes would cancel each other out.  The total of the notes recorded as assets would equal the total of all the liabilities of notes, and so all notes could be removed from the combined World Balance Sheet without affecting its 'bottom line' meaningfulness. 

Robots combined with AI (Artificial Intelligence)?  Possibly Regenerative Assets (depending on their programming, learning and tool- and material-using capabilities).  Great potential here, to help humanity with some of the work of transitioning to a sustainable future.  Imagine self-repairing and self-reproducing robots, built from sustainable materials, that could be set to work maintaining and enhancing the biosphere and reducing carbon emissions.  On the other hand, Such robots could do untold damage if control of their programming fell into the wrong hands, or "went wrong", or they "escaped" human control altogether ... (anyone seen the film "Ex-machina" or the series "Westworld"?). 
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