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By any measure Chinese cuisine is incredibly diverse; its wealth of regional styles, range of ingredients and combinations of taste, texture, nutritional value and aesthetics are arguably unmatched. All you need to prepare the majority of Chinese dishes is a wok, a cutting board, a spoon/spatula and a good knife or cleaver. A stockpot and a colander are helpful as well. Any other tool or cooking implement is superfluous.

The rest of the "capital" required to prepare Chinese cuisine is skill and experience. Skill requires both knowledge and experience. One could watch cooking shows for hours on end and learn something about the procedures employed in preparing Chinese cuisine, but without experience then the knowledge cannot be leveraged into edible/tradable dishes.

Just because an asset has marketable value does not make it capital. A house which generates no income is not a productive asset in the same sense as tools, equipment or an enterprise. Only when rooms are rented to create a source of income does a house become productive. Land may have value on the open market, but if it is devoted to lawn then it is not productive. Only when the lawn is replaced with a garden or orchard producing edible/tradable produce is it productive.

This distinction is important because it explains why a household may appear to be worth a lot of money in the sense of assets owned, but when measured in productive capital (means of production and skills) it might well be impoverished.

There are only two end-states when the State debauches its currency: the devaluation of that currency or the default of State debt. Thus counting on a State which is borrowing profligately to maintain the value of its currency is inherently risky. If defaults rise and credit becomes scarce--a common enough occurrence in eras of heightened risk and caution--then assets which had great value in times of easy credit (such as houses) could languish unsold, effectively reduced to capital traps.

This is why I emphasize capital over assets. Many things listed as assets may end up being unsellable or greatly reduced in value. In contrast, surplus capital in the form of productive assets will always have value because they are the means to producing value and income and thus security and wealth.

In sum: unproductive assets are not capital. Their value can fall precipitously because they are neither the means of production nor necessarily tradable for the means of production.

Thus the goal is to acquire, and then leverage, productive capital: the means to produce value and the skills required to do so.

We might also make a distinction based on scarcity and substitution. Some useful assets can be substituted rather freely. If you don't own a shovel, a hoe will do. A cart can be substituted for a wagon. But when you need to weld two pieces of steel, then you need a welding rig. Substitutes (drilling holes and assembling through-bolts, etc.) are cumbersome at best.

At the highest levels, there is no substitute for semiconductor manufacturing equipment. If you want to fabricate solar cells, you need very costly capital equipment and the infrastructure and skills to operate and maintain it.

On the other hand, if you want to assemble a household solar water heater, then a length of black hose and a few other basic materials will do.

Thus we should all be aware of what productive assets cannot be substituted and what is intrinsically scarce or limited.

One useful way to organize capital into a taxonomy of scarcity and value is to recognize four basic categories of capital:

1. Natural capital: fresh water, arable soil, coal, oil, minerals, fisheries, sunlight, geothermal hot springs, etc.

2. Built capital: buildings, infrastructure, equipment, machine tools, etc.

3. Social capital: education, skills, family, community, networks, government

4. Individual capital: skills, experience, health, ability to learn, ability to work with others, etc.

At the most basic level, arable land and fresh water are essentials which are intrinsically limited. Sunlight and geothermal