fyi: saving money is not good

So, I said I wasn’t going to write anymore on the economy, but hey that seems to be the talk everywhere. Well, everywhere except on my trip to Vermont (and that was only because I wasn’t interacting with people). Anyway, I read a title on the NY Times that reads, “Oversaving, a Burden for Out Times” with a little tidbit of the article claiming we are risking an epidemic. First off, I didn’t read the article, nor am I planning to. Maybe the article actually does state that saving money is really a good thing and people having money instead of burning lots of credit isn’t an epidemic. If that is what the article is about though, the editor really should have changed the title on this one.

I know what you are thinking, mainly because I am thinking it too – “Well, someone has to spend some money to get this economy going and for people to keep their jobs.” As someone who has a severe case of survivor’s guilt something does need to be done or happen, or however this whole interlocking global economy thing works.

However, are people saving their money really the problem? A few months back all people could talk about was how mortgages were being given out to people who could not afford the mortgage and how evil that was. Yes, we can blame the lender. We can also blame the consumer for thinking they can afford a $400K dollar house with nothing down. We can blame a housing market where the average Joe-homeowner can’t afford a reasonable house. We can blame the consumerist society for always having to have more, and so on. But, we can’t blame savings.

We can’t blame people for getting out of debt, not investing, and building money in their savings account. Money they actually have. Society can’t be run on credit. Just look at what has happened: people flopped when the economy flopped. Within all the chaos with the economy savings actually might be a bright spot.