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：安全帽和建筑施工項目是描繪他們?nèi)绾沃亟▏业慕^佳比喻；新的科學(xué)園區(qū)顯示出未來的可能性；橋梁和火車展現(xiàn)出他們?nèi)绾沃匦侣?lián)結(jié)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：我們將其視為一種好的支出方式，而消費——像是家中不那么受寵的老大——則是不可持續(xù)、沒有產(chǎn)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(qū)動的疫后復(fù)蘇根本不值得我們煩惱。