Assets in an economy

It has been more than a month since I posted anything on my blog. have to try to keep up the momentum in July. want to discuss assets in general as asset prices get talked a lot in economic viewpoints. Assets support an economic activity, have a longer life, gets consumed over a period of years. machine, building etc - maintenance cost, depreciation a meassure of its annual consumption. Land doesn't get consumed in the same way. improvements to land do have similar characteristics as a machine consumption. Land is limited, land supports other economic activities on it and so value of land is connected to the economic activity supported on it.

What's an asset worth? There are 15 people in the economy - all are currently farmers but we can shift some farmers to become workers to build a machine. Say it takes 2 years to build a new machine using 5 workers and the machine will last for 2 years. say every person normally consumes 1 bushel of wheat/year, and without the machine, they can produce 1 bushel/year. with machine, they can produce 2 bushel/year. They can either use bumper crops or underconsume for 2 years to support the 5 workers for two years to build the machine. Once machine is built, production of wheat doubles, back to normal consumption. What is the value of the machine - 10 bushels as they have to provide 10 bushels in 2 years to get a new machine. Clearly the asset price represents the resources it takes to build the asset currently. The machine build is a win for the economy. Previously with 15 people working the farms, they produced 15 bushels of wheat/year but now with 10 people working the farms with the machine, they can produce 20 bushels of wheat/year.