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.
政治人士热爱投资。部分原因是在视觉上有感染力：安全帽和建筑施工项目是描绘他们如何重建国家的绝佳比喻；新的科学园区显示出未来的可能性；桥梁和火车展现出他们如何重新联结那些住在偏僻地方的人们。但对投资的推崇是我们许多人掉入的陷阱：我们将其视为一种好的支出方式，而消费——像是家中不那么受宠的老大——则是不可持续、没有产出的。这种清教徒式的看法是错误的。一轮潜在的由消费者驱动的疫后复苏根本不值得我们烦恼。