Defining Economics Objectively

• Appreciables include items that increase in value over time such as houses, stock certificates, mutual funds, works of fine art, and so forth and qualify as assets.
• Depreciables include items that decrease in value over time such as automobiles, clothing, and so forth and qualify as assets.
• Consumables include items readily consumed such as food, fuel, interest payments, repairs and entertainment costs and qualify as expenses.

So from what you say, even the appreciables must necessarily over time degenerate into consumables.  That may, however, take generations to happen.  For the sake of the individual, a given asset may remain appreciable for the time he owns it and thus serve his purposes well.

I seem to be blathering on here because I'm not sure of myself.

• Assets consist of what you own such as houses, cars, boats, stocks, bonds, etc.
• Liabilities consist of what you owe such as mortgages, loans, credit card balances, etc.
• Incomes consist of cash flowing to your accounts such as salaries, commissions, stock dividends, interest earnings, etc.
• Expenses consist of cash flowing from your accounts such as utilities payments, interest payments, etc.

For me to talk sensibly about increasing net worth, cash flow, etc. I would need to show how all these terms tie back to the basic definition of economics.

Inflation aside, I think we can fairly say that the total wealth in a capitalistic society even with "zero population growth" will increase over time based on the accumulation of knowledge about how to achieve material human values with greater and greater effectiveness.  The culture as a whole becomes smarter and more productive.  Continuous improvement becomes the norm.

I would assume that a reasonably intelligent and basically honest person would have the same experience and so grow his net worth over time at the micro level.  This would imply that the individual would spend the first half or more of his life accumulating productive assets and the remainder of his life "distributing" or "consuming" them.  All this becomes possible if he lives a profitably productive early life, i.e. if he produces more than he immediately consumes just to stay alive.

Even if he "retires" from his role as a Producer, he still must remain fully engaged as an effective Investor if he wants his productive assets to support him until nature "consumes" him via natural death.

Is this a fair analysis?