张斌：消费和投资不是对立关系，短期内提高消费就需要扩大投资

Group 1 - The core argument presented is that insufficient demand is a form of market failure that can self-amplify, and the key to overcoming this challenge is to decisively break the negative transmission chain rather than addressing all underlying causes individually [2] - Zhang Bin outlines various explanations for insufficient demand from economic theory, including income inequality, diminishing marginal returns on capital, and price stickiness [2] Group 2 - Multiple policy recommendations are proposed to address insufficient demand, emphasizing the need to break the negative cycle rather than merely addressing the underlying causes [3] - It is suggested that public investment should not be evaluated solely based on the commercial capital return of individual projects, and fiscal spending growth must exceed nominal GDP growth to have a reversing effect [3] - The focus should be on altering fast variables such as credit, investment, and asset prices to stimulate slow variables like income and consumption, with government spending and lower interest rates being the most effective short-term measures to boost consumption [3] Group 3 - The most effective way to quickly increase consumption in the short term is to significantly boost investment, as this will enlarge nominal GDP, benefiting residents' income, government revenue, and corporate profits [4] - Investment and consumption are not opposing forces; rather, they can mutually promote each other, especially in the short term [4]