True, but for a large scale operation you are going to want to have a bioreactor for both efficiency and scale, not to mention reducing the dead giveaway large quantity of people to tend the more manual methods.

No, you don't.

This kind of presumes reason is the basis of our drug laws.

Easy-peasy. I don't even have to google it. The Interstate Commerce Clause. All you have to do is find some pretext that says the regulation affects interstate commerce in some way and the feds can quash it.

In this case the issue to use is plain as a pikestaff. By preventing municipalities from providing high quality internet service the state is hinder access by out-of-state vendors to consumers in that community. That justification is WAAY stronger than other that have held up to scrutiny.

There is no single number and even if there were it would be impossible to hit it with any sort of reliability. There are simply too many moving and difficult to measure parts of the economy to realistically get to a specific number. Central banks can often keep it within a few percentage point range but that's the best they can usually do.

The best answer is probably in the low single digits, somewhere between 1%-4%. Why? Higher inflation than that tends to exceed the ability of other assets (notably company earnings) to grow and thus people's assets shrink in value at a rate they cannot overcome. So how about deflation? That's bad too because then people are incentivized to NOT invest because they know their assets will be worth more tomorrow than today without them doing anything productive with them. So how about 0% inflation? See my earlier comment about how it is basically impossible to hit a specific number. You'll miss high or low and if you target 0% you'll get into deflation sometimes which is bad. So the answer is a low single digit percentage of inflation. That is enough to push people to invest and do useful things with their capital without causing them to lose value in their assets or sit on them without investing at all.

That's not true. Most employee's portion of the value in the share price is basically a rounding error but it's not uncommon for executives to account for a substantial portion of the share price. Warren Buffet undoubtedly accounts for a very significant percentage of the share price of Berkshire Hathaway and when he dies/retires I would expect the share price of that company to drop. Interestingly the value of an employee can be negative. When Carly Fiorina left HP the stock ROSE 7% the day she left.

Depends on the asset. There is no single simple answer to this question.

In general the practice is to look for something similar that was sold and to use that as a proxy for its current market value. Sometimes this is not an easy thing to do. If the asset is very unique it may be impossible as a practical matter.

It cannot be accurately valued. At best you can take an educated guess regarding what it might be worth but it will at the end of the day just be a guess. Think of it as an appraisal for an item. It might not actually sell for that much or it might bring much more but it's an educated guess by someone with a reasonable knowledge of the market for such assets.

The bottling plants are not the brand. Coca-Cola is selling flavored sugar water. There is some value in the product but the VAST majority of the value is in the brand. After all you could buy Pepsi, RC, Faygo or any number of other drinks and you could probably pay less for them. So why did you buy a Coke? Furthermore since the Coca-Cola brand has never been sold any valuation of that brand is at best an educated guess.

Book value generally includes only items that have been bought or sold. A company may have a valuable brand but unless it has been bought or sold at some point, its book value will be $0.00. Furthermore book value may have little to do with the current market value of assets owned. McDonalds has vast real estate holdings but these have been purchased over many decades, often for less money than they would fetch if bought/sold today. Their current book value is widely considered to be far less than their current market value but they are not marked to market under normal circumstances.

Why is that dumb? That's true of ANY asset. In fact even if they are paying a dividend all the company is doing is transferring money to you that you already own as a shareholder.

A dividend pay out implies that the company does not believe that it has investment opportunities available to it that would outperform those available to the shareholder. A dividend is essentially an admission by management that the company has cash flow coming in but has no idea or no ability to put that cash to productive use. So it is a fair question to ask why you would ever invest in a company that in spite of the resources available to it cannot generate a reasonable return on the money it earns. Dividends are not a stupid idea but it's reasonable to question why they are being paid.

Book value in accounting terms is the value PAID for the assets. It may or may not accurately reflect current market value. Many assets like brands can be very difficult to value though it is clear that they do have some value because they have never been bought or sold. For instance Coca-Cola is clearly a valuable brand but how much is it really worth? Nobody knows for certain because it has never been put up for sale. We can make an educated guess but it's just a guess. If the asset is never sold it may not have a book value even if it is clear it would bring a substantial price in a sale.

Why would I do that? I have a gun and I know how to use it. If things are really that desperate I'll just take the bread if I need to. Furthermore my cash, stock and other assets are not the only things I own. I have real estate, useful goods like cars and tools and jewelery. I have assets in foreign currencies. I even have some amount of bullion. See when they say diversify your assets they don't just mean buying stocks and bonds. You have to REALLY diversify because it is highly unlikely that everything will lose value all at the same time. I might lose a lot but the odds of me losing everything are quite small.

That's not the only reason it has value. It has some amount of utility value. We can make useful things with it - electronics, coatings, etc. However it's utility is hugely exceeded by its perceived (real or not) value as a "safe" store of value. This perception is generally not backed up by evidence but it persists nevertheless.

Go ahead and try that. I guarantee that they will look at you like you are trying to pass a $3 bill. Not a single person behind the counter will have ever seen one of those coins and they almost certainly will not accept it as payment.

Doesn't matter if you believe in it or not. It works and it's a vital part of the economy. Financing in and of itself is not a bad thing. Making money in the stock market is not inherently bad either. Like anything it can be abused but that's not a viable argument against it.

I'm an engineer too. I'm also an accountant. You should get a thicker skin if that is all it takes to insult you. Economics doesn't care if you can't wrap your head around its concepts.

Start, buy or work for a manufacturing company. That's what I do for a living.

If things really go to hell it will be whomever has bullets and a gun to use them in.

So you are trading inflation risk for exchange rate risk since (almost) nobody takes bullion as payment and bullion fluctuates in value just like any other asset. Go ahead and try to pay for a hamburger at McDonalds with your gold coins. Let me know how that works out for you.