ABSTRACT
At the heart of the global economic crash of 2008 lay a black hole of worthless assets into which the markets imploded. The leading ‘real’ asset owned by many financial institutions, along with gold, is buildings. Yet the long-term value of those buildings was never really questioned. Banks and insurance companies unquestioningly assumed a face value of these investments based on the short-term costs of selling and buying them on a rising bull market.
