Net of inflation and net of taxes, that's awfully close to zero real after-tax return.

WSJ: Baby Boomers' Investment Returns Will Be Constrained, This Researcher Warns

If the return-of-capital distributions shrink your tax basis down all the way to zero, then you have to start reporting them currently as capital gains.

FORBES: Buying shelter

Go out to 10-year Treasuries and the inflation adjusted rate of return currently is a flat zero.

FORBES: Savvy Investors Survive Fed's Remorseless Abuse

We may not return specifically to mercantilist models, but whatever comes next will share the essential zero-sum feature.

FORBES: Warren Buffett, Peter Thiel and the Return to Zero-Sum Economics

And because they have zero expected return, they are inferior to the rate of risk-free return.

FORBES: The Efficient Frontier

That is clearest in the bond market (those buying German two-year bonds on a yield of zero are assured of exactly that return) but it applies to shares as well.

ECONOMIST: Share prices in Europe may have priced in the bad news