"The cost of capital" is basically defined as the interest you'd pay to borrow it.  I.e., the opportunity cost, since, it is assumed, you can put that money into some other investment and make some percentage gain.

This theology is the heart of our problem: the debt-and-interest financial system that requires endless "growth" to survive.  Without a new paradigm we're doomed.

Those investors that refuse to "lose money" now will lose everything later.  Sort of like the claim that reducing GHG is "bad for the economy".  Tell that to NOLA.

This theology is the heart of our problem: the debt-and-interest financial system that requires endless "growth" to survive.  Without a new paradigm we're doomed.

Here's the link to a paper I wrote in an attempt to outline the paradigm of an organic economic system. An organic economy is an economy that does not require perpetual growth (an impossibility on a finite earth) , but balances the forces of growth and decline.

The Organic Economy