That means paying down debt and rebuilding savings, leaving consumer demand mired in protracted weakness.

Consumers are diverting what little income they earn away from spending toward paying down debt and rebuilding savings.

When both bubbles burst, over extended US households had no choice but to cut back and rebuild their damaged balance sheets by paying down outsize debt burdens and rebuilding depleted savings.

Although they had experienced large declines in share prices and house values, they had such large amounts of liquid savings in postal savings accounts and in banks that they did not feel the need to increase saving in order to rebuild assets.

Trapped in the aftermath of a wrenching balance sheet recession, US families remain fixated on deleveraging paying down debt and rebuilding their income based saving balances.

When the bubbles burst, households understandably became fixated on balance sheet repair namely, paying down debt and rebuilding personal savings, rather than resuming excessive spending habits.

Low savings countries cannot easily adjust without an equivalent adjustment in high savings countries, because their low savings rates may have been caused by high savings abroad.

Savings are, of course, no bad thing.

One is that domestic saving in the US increases.

This story is fundamentally different from the savings shortage and savings glut hypotheses, and it leads to dramatically different policies.

The ratio of savings to gross domestic product has risen.

b) Establishment of cooperatives for savings and loan services

For nearly a decade, capital from high savings countries like Germany flowed to low savings countries like Spain.

And savings are particularly good for developing countries.

Domestic savings, however, remain a major constraint.

The puzzle of the global savings glut may live on for several years to come.

Trapped in the aftermath of a wrenching balance sheet recession, US families remain fixated on deleveraging paying down debt and rebuilding their income based saving balances. Progress has been slow and limited on both counts.

But savings will need to be allocated far more efficiently than in the past.

Finally, Spaniards could borrow excess German savings and increase consumption and investment.

They argue that current account balances reflect national savings and investment rates.

Similarly, Mexico s National Savings and Financial Services Bank has helped to strengthen savings and credit institutions that serve millions of rural residents who would otherwise have been relegated to the margins of the formal financial sector.

American families are hurting, and elected officials want to pin the blame on China, thereby deflecting attention from the difficult task of rebuilding saving, restoring competitiveness, and living within the country s means.

But domestic savings remain low in the face of persistently high levels of public debt.

America has a savings deficiency, not a glut.

Africa needed capital, but lacked savings.

Meanwhile, the reforms necessary to reduce savings and increase private consumption are being delayed.

In addition to more investment, India needs less consumption and higher savings.

A necessary complement to this is an environment conducive to channelling the savings to productive investments.

BEIJING Most of the international financial crises that have occurred over the last 200 years were the result of strains created by the recycling of capital from countries with high savings to those with low savings.

And the US is taking steps to balance its budget, boost private savings, and enhance energy efficiency.

But what is proposed now will make lending for investment even less attractive and increase the incentive to concentrate sovereign risk in the banking sector.

The savings and loan crisis of the 1980 s was a 100 billion problem.

Financial repression is basically a form of administrative taxation of domestic savings.

Put differently, the value of the dollar reflects total national saving, not just savings in the household sector.

China must recognize that high savings will not provide stable growth over the long run.

The implementation of the agreement with the European Union on the taxation of savings is a good example of this.

External accounts clearly matter, because they reflect the balance between domestic saving and investment.

In one of his last articles, Milton Friedman wrote that savings nowadays took the form of houses.

Private savings, as a rule, can pay the costs of treatment only for the thrifty and the well off.

A gender impact assessment of the Life Course Savings Scheme will be carried out in 2004.

Interestingly, both sides cite America s gaping trade deficit believe it or not, the US is soaking up two thirds of global excess saving to support their arguments.

In the UK, no drop in precautionary savings can be counted upon (households are heavily indebted, so they need to save more, not less), and long term interest rates are already very low.

Government spending especially on unemployment benefits, aid to states, and some construction projects probably helped avert a more wrenching downturn, but continued red ink worries households, which are also trying to rebuild savings and reduce debt after a spending binge.

First and foremost, savings generated from restructuring must be reinvested in transforming military forces.

Chinese savings are underwriting much of the American civilizing mission that Ferguson applauds.