New Ground and Old Things

Larry Summers:

People always think more about how new ground can be broken than they think about how existing institutions can be sustained or existing facilities can be maintained. It leads to a constant trap where we under-invest in old things, then old things disappoint us, then we feel a need for new things, then to satisfy that need for new things we under-invest more in old things and the cycle goes on.… I think the fetish of novelty and the lack of glamour of maintaining and sustaining things is a besetting problem.