CSDC 358

Consumers, who in many cases have a broad range of buying power well above the mere subsistence level, exercise significant influence over economic realities by their free decisions regarding whether to put their money into consumer goods or savings. In fact, the possibility to influence the choices made within the economic sector is in the hands of those who must decide where to place their financial resources. Today more than in the past it is possible to evaluate the available options not only on the basis of the expected return and the relative risk but also by making a value judgment of the investment projects that those resources would finance, in the awareness that “the decision to invest in one place rather than another, in one productive sector rather than another, is always a moral and cultural choice”.⁷⁴⁴ John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 36: AAS 83AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 83 (1991) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1991), 839-840.