Negative rewards

Big whoop-de-doo in the Letters to the Editor section of The New York Times today re: Judith H. Dobrzynski's recent Op-Ed piece about museums' deaccessioning (selling) parts of their collections as a way to raise money.

I didn't read her piece, but here's the thing about deaccessioning collections or selling jewelry or property as a way to make money: It's basically what I call "negative revenue," and negative revenue creates a false sense of income.

The day always comes when buyers cease to be buyers and sellers cease to have items to sell. No one wants your personal gold jewelry forever and even if they do, you're going to run out of gold jewelry after a while. Then what?

The only way to make money is to make, do, buy or sell something that people will continuously want. And that's very hard to figure out and then constantly fulfill.

In other words, you have to make money the old-fashioned way, as the SmithBarney commercial use to say: You have to earn it.

What to Do This Weekend returns next Friday!