Talk:Saving

is a good time for someone to create an article, especially with the current, extremely low savings rate of Americans. There is some disagreement about what 'savings rate' is. If there is an answer to that which can be agreed upon by a few knowledgeable people, I would like to see it. Such an answer could, for example, tell us whether or not the American savings rate is in negative territory.

Other discussion could provide some education to thousands of people about the necessity of savings. Examples of the power of interest is often eye-opening. I'm always amazed at the number of people who do not know what the "rule of 72" is, which is just a rule of thumb that can tell you how long it would take for a person to double his money given certain returns on investment, assuming there is no fluctuation.

This is my appeal to writers. Thank you for responding. 69.6.162.160 01:22, 5 April 2006 (UTC)Brian PearsonReply

This part is wrong "If savings are stashed in a mattress or otherwise not deposited into a financial intermediary like a bank there is no chance for those savings to be recycled as investment by business." When someone "hoards" currency, they are investing the currency. They remove that currency from circulation and it is a deflationary/nominal cost reducing force. Instead of them investing in one particular enterprise, the money supply is reduced such that prices remain low for all, even though the effect is negligible. It gives everyone else purchasing power. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gnode (talk • contribs) 15:26, 31 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

Well, no. Mattress stuffed currency, or bank deposits that are not spent, is purchasing power that does not become part of the aggregate income. It tells producers that their goods are not wanted. The failure of consumers to spend causes producers to accumulate unsold inventory, which tends to make them reduce prices (and ultimately increase unemployment). The idea that a decrease in circulating medium would lead to a decrease in prices with no real decline in output or employment is based on assumptions such as full employment and the idea that equilibrium levels of output will not be affected by changes in money-holding preferences.[GN842 10 April 2012]

The author has made the false and misleading assumption that the thing stashed is a fiat currency. If savings take the form of something with intrinsic and lasting value (gold, acorns, wampum, vodka), demand increases for the production of those things. Consumption is simply being deferred; those saved goods will presumably be traded later for other goods and services, encouraging investment (labor and other capital usage with deferred compensation) in those goods and services predicted to enjoy future demand. If the hoarder never does open up the mattress, well, yeah--people have missed the opportunity to exchange, but fortunately most people are greedy, and have heirs. Simplulo (talk) 23:49, 16 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

This statement of opinion has no place in this document "Better to invest in a government pension, detached home and an education." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gnode (talk • contribs) 15:55, 31 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

It would be interesting to have statistics on savings rate by country, and/or over time. -- Beland (talk) 21:02, 27 June 2010 (UTC)Reply

There should be an article, or at least a subsection of this article, on Precautionary saving. It should link to Prudence#Prudence in economics and finance. Rinconsoleao (talk) 08:21, 10 September 2010 (UTC)Reply

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability Apparently this article used to have something about the concept of "savings rate." That term redirects to this page. But now there is nothing. What is the technical definition of "savings rate"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.100.178.95 (talk) 03:46, 26 November 2011 (UTC)Reply

I believe it is faulty, or at least misleading, to say that no one has lost their deposits since the creation of the FDIC. Certainly there were significant losses of deposits during the Savings and Loan debacle of the 1980s, where many were only paid pennies on the dollar for their savings accounts. L33M3rr1ck (talk) 20:13, 2 May 2012 (UTC) L33M3rr1ckReply

It does specify "due to a bank failure"; savings and loans associations are not technically banks, and they were not insured by the FDIC at the start of that crisis, IIRC. All of it needs to be sourced at any rate, we can agree. Kuru (talk) 23:02, 2 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

The lead correctly makes the distinction between saving (an economic flow variable) and savings (a stock variable in finance). But then the last two sections of the article conflate these, as well as the saving/investment distinction. These sections add nothing but confusion, so I'm deleting them. Loraof (talk) 18:01, 7 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

from the article
> (for example, Investopedia confuses the two terms in its page on the "savings rate").

This is cited with a link to the mentioned Investopedia article, however that article doesn't state that it itself confuses the terms. Also, I don't think such direct attacks are in good tone. Ca1ek (talk) 18:36, 25 April 2020 (UTC)Reply

I edited the page to remove the previously quoted part. Rest of the sentence could also be called original research though, but I'm not going to remove that. Ca1ek (talk) 18:40, 25 April 2020 (UTC)Reply