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September 23, 2011
Friday
 
 
The continued mockery of saving
Johnathan Pearce (London)  Globalization/economics

I enjoyed listening to this Mark Steyn radio interview the other day. He gets seriously worked up and he's very effective in that medium, as well as in print. The show that I link to here has its advertisement segments. One ad, for some sort of investment trading product, talks about all kinds of clever trading ideas, but it had this jarring note, if I remember: "You don't get rich by saving money".

That's the current financial disaster in a nutshell. Saving money, accumulating wealth and investing it in productive assets such as businesses, is for saps. And with negative real interest rates (thanks to Messrs Bernanke, Greenspan and chums), saving money in the traditional way is a mug's game.

When the culture of steady wealth accumulation and savings is mocked like this, it adds up over time.

Comments

"You don't get rich by saving money"

That's true enough in the sense that you have to invest the money you have saved in productive ways. Our disaster is that the money - borrowed and taxed - was spent in unproductive and counterproductive ways.

I have worked in companies where the management preferrred to increase profits by small fractions based on trimming costs rather than enter new markets with the potential to multiply profits but with risks attached. Their growth potential was extremely limited as a consequence.


Posted by Robbo at September 23, 2011 01:38 PM

The ads were scary.

Eco wine, that is sustainable - what does this mean?

Then there was an ad for chopping people's faces up in the (demented) belief it makes them look as they did when they were young.

Am I right in thinking that Californians (at least in this area of California) are a little odd?

As for J.P.s post.

Well yes - if saving does not make people better off they will not do it (or will do it far less).

The dream of Keynes will be achieved - and the consequences will be truly terrible.

This is where the elite are just so wrong.

They think, if they play various monetary and fiscal games, things will get better (evenutally).

However, the monetary and fiscal games mean that things, over time, will get worse and worse.


Posted by Paul Marks at September 27, 2011 03:37 PM
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