Politicians love investment. Partly it is the visual appeal: hard hats and construction projects make a great metaphor to illustrate how they will rebuild the country; a new science campus demonstrates the possibilities of the future; bridges and trains show how they are reconnecting a disjointed people. But the veneration of investment is a trap that many of us fall into: seeing it as the good kind of spending while consumption, its larger but less-loved brother, is unsustainable and unproductive. This perception, with its whiff of puritanism, is a mistake. A potential consumer-driven recovery from the pandemic is nothing to wring our hands about.
政治人士熱愛投資。部分原因是在視覺上有感染力：安全帽和建築施工項目是描繪他們如何重建國家的絕佳比喻；新的科學園區顯示出未來的可能性；橋樑和火車展現出他們如何重新聯結那些住在偏僻地方的人們。但對投資的推崇是我們許多人掉入的陷阱：我們將其視爲一種好的支出方式，而消費——像是家中不那麼受寵的老大——則是不可持續、沒有產出的。這種清教徒式的看法是錯誤的。一輪潛在的由消費者驅動的疫後復甦根本不值得我們煩惱。