The Labor Committee was known for promoting a "socialist re-industrialization" of the economy, combined with confiscatory taxes on what it saw as wasteful and parasitic investment.

The central government is concerned about wasteful investment and reckless lending by state banks, practices that have powered growth but risk high inflation or even a financial collapse.

The empty office buildings and half-filled shopping centers across the Southwest are proof that foolish tax subsidies can make wasteful investments profitable.

Where markets are primitive or nonexistent, the task of discriminating productive from wasteful investment can be herculean.

The graduate unemployment crisis in China represents a wasteful investment of scarce resources.

By creating an illusion of wealth (that certain resources exist which do not exist), interventions encourage wasteful investments and unsustainable consumption, instead of productive investments.

That would amount to a double subsidy, inviting wasteful investment.

This devious provision would, once again, encourage wasteful investments because investors become eligible for huge tax breaks.

More fundamentally, the country must turn away from the crony capitalism that led to wasteful investments in everything from autos to airplanes.

Without sound planning and clear direction from public authorities, developers might find themselves pursuing the dead ends of costly competition and wasteful investment.