[fluoridation]

The price of land is approximately correlated to the total population, because that's the variable part of the supply-demand equation. If there's fewer people there's less need to grow a lot of food, less space needed to manage waste, less space needed to house them, etc. etc. There's nothing productive you can do with land that would justify a very high price if there's only 50 thousand humans in the world; if one parcel of land is too expensive just go find and claim a different one for yourself.

So, yes, on a long enough time frame, land also goes down in value, because human population is likely to at some point go down.

>I could guarantee you 1% a year returns if you give me money, but no one would do that because that's less than inflation

What do you mean, "no one would do that"? If you're guaranteeing that ROI, someone who's investing with you instead of holding currency at 2% inflation would see their savings depreciate by only half as much, at no risk, perhaps with just some liquidity loss depending on what your terms are for pulling out. I assure you there's people out there who would take that deal.