In general, the US stock market right now. Millions of retails investors without understanding what is happening are pouring money into the system. I’m not saying that their analysis or DD is wrong or bad - in fact it’s of quite fantastic quality - however they don’t understand the advantages (often unfair) that Big Money has in that system. It’s their game to control. I believe a bubble will be created, and then burst, furthering the inequality gap in the US.
What comes to mind for me would be people or companies currently investing in the international travel space since the mid to long term future of international travel is still unknown. It could be easy for these people or companies to not be able to cover their bills since travel restrictions are in place for almost al counties. Then again, what I consider a malinvestment, others may see as a good investment.
Due to low interests rates, there was overbuilding of hotels. Even before the pandemic many hotels had low occupancy. After the pandemic the low occupancy problem became worse. If interest rates wouldn’t have been so low, capital would have been better allocated. Overbuilding hotels was a malinvestment.
Free college for all. While not yet official there is pressure to pass this initiative. As with anything else that is “free” you’ll get what you paid for it. Larger class sizes, more generalized education, devaluing of a baccalaureate since everyone will have one, so ultimately exactly who does pay for it?
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In Poland few years ago government decided to give 500 polish zt a month for each child in the family - regardless of the family financial status. This continues until today. It was supposed to burst demographic statistics. It resulted in rising prices for anything which is related to children - from food and clothes to education). Also, people started spending this money for traveling etc. Overall, inflation went up and and only now people started to realize that they have been fooled! Not to mention that demographic statistics look even worse 
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I work in a hotel - totally agree!
I think our governments around the world are responsible for the biggest malinvestments, governments spend a lot of money on welfare and war which causes massive debts, how (if ever) will this debt be paid back? The semi fractional reserve banking system which provides massive credit expansion and low interest rates triggers a business cycle that becomes a source of malinvestment, after the 2008 GFC governments bailed out the investors who had financed the malinvestments. All that happens is that the debts are transferred to the governments and their central reserve banks, the debt does not go away and the lost wealth cannot be recreated, no matter how much money they print.
Investments made in corn based ethanol based on US subsidies. It is a malinvestment because the attractiveness of such investments were based on US subsidies and not free market prices. These subsidies distorted the price discovery in the market.
In 2015 Venezuela made a deal with the Brazilian company JBS S.A. for 2,1 USD billions for buying food for the Venezuelan people that have been suffering from hunger since the government decided to paralyze all the national production. Only 40% of the food arrived. Not even a quarter of the people had access to it. Same story is repeating every day: a lot of money has been invested but no food or money has been seen.
Any business made in a corrupted country is a malinvesment for those who don’t work on their team.
Investment in real estate that was misvalued in 2008 was a malinvestment
in Hungary, the government is investing in sports hall constructions (especially football) instead of developing health care or education. From the construction perspective, there is no difference between building hospitals, schools, or sports halls: same labor, same energy, same investment (simplified). But from the future perspective, the country’s population would benefit more in 20-30years. Of course, if there will be a zombie attack, maybe sports halls are better for self-defense, they will be empty anyway…
Herbalife.
A pyramid scheme operating under the veil of a ‘multi-level marketing corporation’. (Often impoverished) Individuals are suckered into investing their capital into a store with products, but then are faced with the realisation that the only way to make anything close to a profit is by recruiting others to join. The business is fundamentally based on the recruitment of individuals, rather than the sale of a good or service. Certain people who had made the investment and attempted to make a profit through selling the products the company sends to them have demonstrated that it is practically impossible to make money through retail.
I recall multiple people I once knew advertising on social media in attempts to get other ‘promoters’ to sign up.
Additionally, the stock price for Herbalife has been extremely distorted over the years, with high-profile investors decreasing and inflating the price due to personal animosity. Therefore, such valuations are arbitrary and have no bearing on the quality (which in itself is terrible) of the business itself.
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Hedge funds, they are the cause of many world capital problems. Unregulated and driven by greed. There is one solution to this dilemma, there is no solution. It is obvious we will move towards a Bitcoin standard, but its not REAL according to the wall street fat cats. Traditional banks and the US dollar are a dying breed, with hyperinflation on the rise, its only chance of survival is the digital age. Thus the governments push to regulate behind the scenes, but truly have no understanding of this technology. AI technology will weed out the greed, but implementing such technology could be very dangerous to certain organizations, they cant stall forever in a global consensus. Web3 will exist, keep mining!
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The parent plus loans scheme in the US, has come under a lot of criticism, as a malinvestment. It has no cap, unlike most other schemes, so parents can borrow up to the cost of attendance.This means that colleges are incentivised to increase fees, which in turn increases the amount of loan needed. The scheme loaned out $12 billion in 2015/16, having quadrupled in size since 1995. It currently accounts for 20% of all student loans, up from 13% only six years ago.
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Cryptocurrency could not be possible without energy consumption, and Mining machines that solve complex computational problems in order to form coins are definitely one of the biggest energy consumers; henceforth, indicating that in ever increasing economy in the technological sector will without any doubt require more energy consumption in the foreseeable and also distant future. [1]
With this in mind, it is obvious that green energy will never be able to meet this demand, and in the United States alone, trillions of dollars are unfortunately allocated in to this Green Deal. [2]
Since Green energy (Wind and Solar) will never be able to meet this ever increasing demand, other alternatives will be needed to be taken into consideration that can be much cleaner and also cheaper to achieve astronomical energy output that could replace coal, gas, oil, and fission. [3]
Fortunately, Nuclear Fusion ( i.e. Nucleosynthesis - e.g. our beloved Sun ) is that alternative, because it is safer than fission as it does not require radioactive minerals like Uranium, can cause a price collapse since one fusion plant can power up to a billion homes, million times way more cleaner than Green Energy, and it also shares the same stigma cryptocurrency is experiencing due to fear by society and greed; thus preventing investments into it. [4]
Green power is truly a great example of malinvestment because it is not aiming to be environmentally friendly since it will require vast amount of lands, will take 100s of years to pay off the CO2 emission required to build them in the first place, produces less energy than energy required, and therefore it is an industrial scam. [5]
ツ
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Investing in paper gold or silver. It sounds great until the dollar is printed faster than notebook paper! At this moment in time the dollar is being printed in record amount. People have been buying crypto gold and silver. The problem is now everyone knows they dont have the silver to back the paper. Now citizens are demanding return on their paper and there is not enough silver to back the paper.
In the very near future there will be a one world currency.
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In Vienna the Wiener Linien sold some of their Cabs and leased them back. What first looks at a great investment deal. I think they made a couple of millions, looks really ugly a few years later. Because the interrest rate was so high, that after 5 year all of the profit has gone away. The forgot simply 2 things. First, the forgot to include the maintainance and secondly they have not read all of the details. After that went public the dissolved the contract with the Hedgefond but they have not been undisclosed the real costs… sounds funny or ?..
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I am a Croatian, so if anyone wants to know more about corruption and past misallocations of capital, just search Croatias politicians and corruption. Believe me you will find more than you actually hoped of.
I just hope there is still time to apply blockchain somehow for everything to be transparent and fair due to technological advances through time.
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One that really stands out to me are the “multi-level marketing” schemes out there. At first, it appeared to be lucrative because it was a new fad, and the early-in folks made some good money. Others took note of their success and got in as well. Unfortunately, these business models require people to ‘buy-in’ to reserve a large chunk of product, but find that they can’t move that product after purchasing it.
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Granada Technology group in the UK. They had a business model that was very lucrative and involved renting out TV and video equipment for a monthly fee. They would then encourage people to upgrade to the latest model and sell the second had equipment for a profit after having already had the rented equipment paid for, potentially twice over. They had a big store outlet network and gave staff minimum wages and paltry commission whereas the senior managers were paid excessively. When faced with competition from direct firms who had no outlets and less costs, the board (who were very old school) buried their head in the sand and rather than react and update the business model, which would have supported the company and shareholders that had invested, they chose to carry on with declining profits and no changes. This eventually resulted in market share dwindling, senior management being sacked and the company having to be merged, which was more of a takeover, by another competitor. The capital they had and therefore the success of the business was funnelled into poor choices, incompetent management and an arrogance to assume they wouldn’t need to change and as a result of this, shares plummeted and the investment that on the face of it should’ve been successful to this day failed.
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