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(ài)投資。部分原因是在視覺(jué)上有感染力：安全帽和建筑施工項(xiàng)目是描繪他們?nèi)绾沃亟▏?guó)家的絕佳比喻；新的科學(xué)園區(qū)顯示出未來(lái)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(duì)投資的推崇是我們?cè)S多人掉入的陷阱：我們將其視為一種好的支出方式，而消費(fèi)——像是家中不那么受寵的老大——?jiǎng)t是不可持續(xù)、沒(méi)有產(chǎn)出的。這種清教徒式的看法是錯(cuò)誤的。一輪潛在的由消費(fèi)者驅(qū)動(dòng)的疫后復(fù)蘇根本不值得我們煩惱。