my take away was that equities produce a lot of wealth, but squander it by not returning it to shareholders (lack of dividends). look how many tech companies refuse to pay dividends because 'we are a growth company, we are always a start up". i hate stock buy backs, I think it just rewards people exiting the stock.

in short, if you are a property owner, you can garentee cash flows. economy goes up, down, you more less have an income stream. stocks, they will always go out of business. a company that never returns money to share holders in the end is always worthless, but today, that is in vogue.