If Bitt’s truly done with this thread then it doesn’t make much sense to continue. However, giving it one last stab:

Say a company offered something called a “Coolness Certificate” (cc) that you could purchase as an investment. The notion being that the company promises to do everything possible to become more “cool”, and in doing so will raise the value of your cc shares. The value in these shares would be that they would increase as the companies “coolness” does, and you could sell them to other investors when you feel that the value has peeked- perhaps you get a sense that the company just isn’t as cool as it used to be. This system works as long as all the investors buy into the notion that the coolness of a company and the value of the cc shares are linked.

Most of the arguments in this thread in favor of stocks having actual value would apply to the above scenario of “Coolness Certificates”. They have value as investments because people want them- the actual value as related to the company isn’t important (in fact, it doesn’t exist). Of course, the moment someone wakes up and realizes that neither is the emperor wearing any clothes, nor is there any correlation between a company’s “coolness” and the shares people have purchased, the whole system comes crashing down.

So what is the difference with stocks? As I see it, stock ownership has the potential to control the destiny of a company, therefore stock does correlate to the perceived value of a company, unlike cc’s to a company’s “coolness”. The more value a company has, the more value there is of being able to control. That most people don’t have enough shares to wield any kind of control is inconsequential, because there are some that do. People do use their shareholdings to control companies, and those holding small numbers of shares are riding on their coattails, as it were.

Or that’s how I see it, anyway. If I missed the point completely or am merely re-treading the same tired arguments, then I apologize.