jam tomorrow

Noun

jam tomorrow (uncountable)

1. (idiomatic) Promised benefits that never arrive.
   • 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 of jam to-morrow and never jam to-day.1930, John Maynard Keynes, Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren
   • Yet they've proved that common men can show astonishing fortitude in chasing jam tomorrow.1961 October, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, volume 17, number 8
2. (broadly, idiomatic) The availability of a resource at a future date.
   • The consumption-possibilities curve illustrates the choice which must be made: more jam today means less jam tomorrow; less jam today means more jam tomorrow.1974, Lawrence H. Officer, Lawrence Berk Smith, Issues in Canadian Economics, McGraw-Hill Ryerson, page 336
   • A basic human characteristic is the preference for consumption today over consumption tomorrow. Jam today is always better than jam 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 of...1985, Phillip Crowson, Economics for Managers: A Professionals’ Guide, 3rd edition, Macmillan Press, page 26