Originally Posted by
Coaccession
For the same reason, davewindsor, that gold ETF prices did not collapse today. A Monet in a museum is a pretty good store of value, much like gold in a vault... which, especially if you happen to live in certain neighborhoods in Detroit, can be even better for storing value than keeping gold bars in your home.
It's probably too much to expect an apology from you, davewindsor, for joining others here who've ignorantly called me a scammer. But it's worth pointing out facts that show why my method offers museums and investors a great win-win opportunity for each side to be better off with a deal. Museums need capital income to pay their expenses but get capital appreciation they can't use. Investors get capital income they simply reinvest after taxes, when capital appreciation could better suit their savings goals. Letting investors invest in museum objects can make both sides better off, as long as museums reserve the rights they need for their cultural mission.
Detroit has billions of dollars invested in its DIA collection. It could create a multi-billion dollar arts endowment with that financial value, and still have cultural rights to its entire collection. The Detroit Arts Department, aka DIA, could use every last object in its collection for any exhibition, research project, conservation project or any other cultural project it chooses, plus have money to put on far more of every kind of cultural project than it does today. The DIA doesn't need a millage to build an operating endowment. Detroit just needs to properly manage its own assets. If the Bing administration or the Founders Society wants to learn how, they can start -- like you, davewindsor -- by taking off their blinders and looking at how people really behave financially.