[Banthum]

Isn't that just the same Friedman approach with a longer time horizon?

Imagine a farmer who farms to exhaust the soil. He earns money but in 30 years, the farmland is rendered useless. He becomes poor in the end.

Another farmer farms slower, leaving fallow years, sustainably. He earns less money but 30 years later the farm is productive. He remains wealthy in the end.

Going from farmer 1 to farmer 2's strategy is not a change in ethics. The second farmer didn't care about the land as an end in itself. He just thought longer into the future, and knew how to measure assets that weren't obvious (in his case, land quality; in real life, loyalty, image, healthy communities to embed in).

[cjalmeida]

There's also a financial reasoning behind that. Low interest rates and high liquidity seems to be the new normal. Even "Main Street" corps are trading with PE ratios above 20. This means 20y of current profits to get back the money.

A capital investor now needs a lot of profitable years to recoup their investment. One single scandal like VW emissions may jeopardize a lot of years profits.

[barkingtoad]

And that's why farmers take care of their land, because farmers generally retire on the worth of it.