We should be attacking bad investments. Capital has value because it can give rise to a flow of income now and in the future, so any activity with this income-producing characteristic can be viewed as capital formation or investment. Human capital is one form of intangible capital. It has taken me decades to understand what they are trying to say, then translate it into plain talk. What follows is the plain-talk definition I've settled on, after many years of thinking about it.
Bad investments fail to do so.
In short, an investment is an attempt to make the future better than it would have been otherwise. Let's look at a few examples, to compare and contrast investment versus consumption . Bread is wealth, but it's not an investment, because it only lasts a few days. It makes my present better, not my future . If I build a bread factory , I'm making an investment.