Những khó khăn này xuất phát phần lớn từ không quen đáng kinh ngạc với các yếu tố cơ bản của kinh tế học. Khi một nhà tư tưởng tầm cỡ Bergson của, có bách khoa toàn thư làm chủ khoa học hiện đại hầu như chưa từng có, thể hiện quan điểm đó cho thấy Ông | THE ASSAULT ON SAVING So many fallacies have grown up about saving in recent years that they cannot all be answered by our example of the two brothers. It is necessary to devote some further space to them. Many stem from confusions so elementary as to seem incredible particularly when found in economic writers of wide repute. The word saving for example is used sometimes to mean mere hoarding of money and sometimes to mean investment with no clear distinction consistently maintained between the two-uses. Mere hoarding of hand-to-hand money if it takes place irrationally causelessly and on a large scale is in most economic situations harmful. But this sort of hoarding is extremely rare. Something that looks like this but should be carefully distinguished from it often occurs after a downturn in business has got under way. Consumptive spending and investment are then both contracted. Consumers reduce their buying. They do this partly indeed because they fear they may lose their jobs and they wish to conserve their resources they have contracted their buying not because they wish to consume less but because they wish to make sure that their power to consume will be extended over a longer period if they do lose their jobs. But consumers reduce their buying for another reason. Prices of goods have probably fallen and they fear a further fall. If they defer spending they believe they will get more for their money. They do not wish to have their resources in goods that are falling in value but in money which they expect relatively to rise in value. The same expectation prevents them from investing. They have lost their confidence in the profitability of 167 ECONOMICS IN ONE LESSON business or at least they believe that if they wait a few months they can buy stocks or bonds cheaper. We may think of them either as refusing to hold goods that may fall in value on their hands or as holding money itself for a rise. It is a misnomer to call this temporary refusal to buy saving.
