Language: en
Meaning: (idiomatic)Promisedbenefitsthat never arrive.1930,John Maynard Keynes,Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren:The “purposive” man ... does not love his cat, but his cat’s kittens; nor, in truth, the kittens, but only the kittens’ kittens, and so on forward forever to the end of cat-dom. For him jam is not jam unless it is a case ofjam to-morrowand never jam to-day.1961October,Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, volume17, number 8:Yet they've proved that common men can show astonishing fortitude in chasingjam tomorrow.1978, Eileen M. Byrne,Women and education:It always seems to be a problem to be dealt with when resources (later) permit.Jam tomorrow, as usual.; (idiomatic,economics,by extension)Theavailabilityof aresourceat afuturedate.1974, Lawrence H. Officer, Lawrence Berk Smith,Issues in Canadian Economics, McGraw-Hill Ryerson, page336:The consumption-possibilities curve illustrates the choice which must be made: more jam today means lessjam tomorrow; less jam today means morejam tomorrow.1985, Phillip Crowson,Economics for Managers: A Professionals’ Guide, 3rd edition, Macmillan Press, page26:A basic human characteristic is the preference for consumption today over consumption tomorrow. Jam today is always better thanjam tomorrow, unless sufficient incentive is offered to forgo the immediate enjoyment of today's jam. This is not because of uncertainty about the likely receipt oftomorrow's jam, but merely a property of the passage of time.1985,Joel Mokyr,The Economics of the Industrial Revolution, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, page216:For one-period optimization, the obvious course of action to maximize consumption is to consume the whole of output by “eating up” the capital stock. The inapplicability of this tactic to an industrializing nation is transparent—it gets a lot ofjamfor today but leaves little fortomorrow. Jam today has therefore to be balanced againstjam tomorrow.
Validation Count: 0
Sourced from Wiktionary