Enron investment? Global crossing investment? Adelphia investment? Worldcom investment? Dot Com investment?
The last item should show you that this is a failed strategy to say the least. Obviously it takes a combination of spending venues. That is precisely what I am talking about. Investment in a stock for a dividend....you forget exactly what i said was being forgotten. Someone has to actually DO something for that stock to produce a dividend. If they don't what is false is its value. That is the lesson learned from the dot com saga.
Incestment is a form of spending. So are savings accounts. So is equity in a mortgage. Cycling is the key to growth. This is why keeping the government out of the cycle is productive. This is why tax cuts work. The cycle needs balance. Today it is out of balance.
One could argue that closing the wage gap is investing in the company its stability and even productivity. Happy workers are more productive.
I would offer that every person should play Sid Meyers game 'civilization'. It can be a great teacher of things along these lines.
These are hardly failures, most succumbed to corruption. The government prosecutors made careers out of going after the suits involved mostly to pretend to be "doing something" after the dot-com crash. The dot-com boom and crash was itself a huge government failure (monetary policy: mostly too loose). The overinvestment in these few cases does not in any way negate the importance of the vast majority of investment. Investment not a form of spending, it is a form of saving. Unfortunately all forms of saving are penalized by government policy.
There is a world of difference between saving and spending. Saving has been so heavily penalized for so long that people no longer understand its value. Saving is the future, spending is the present. Saving and investment increase productivity, employment and wages. Spending only sustains the current levels until the money runs out, then we borrow more and dig a deep hole.