Savings

[The Freethinker]

So we all agree that Americans by and large don't save and that is manifesting itself on a national scale. America is a debtor nation and the masses live on credit, spending money they don't have.

So what do you define as savings?

If you manage to keep $500, $1,000, $2,000 in your pocket after all your monthly expense are paid? Is this savings?

If you barely have anything left BUT you are contributing to a 401k and/or to an IRA account? Is that savings?

Mind you I do have gold and silver, and thanks to a work bonus & tax refund, I will have a sudden cash inflow that will compose 6 months of emergency money. I have gold and silver, and I have retirement accounts. I have decided to resume my Roth IRA after not doing much with it for a while (but will throw a bit into the Roth come this money inflow to get at least something for calendar year 2011 before I begin putting something every week beginning 4/15/2012 so I have at least $3,000 by 4/15/2013 for calendar year 2012).

What's savings then?

[Seraphim]

Savings are retained (rather than spent) measures of PURCHASING POWER.

[Steven Douglas]

You said it - anything you manage to keep, over and above your expenses, is savings.

If I save a thousand nickels, and store them in scattered form all over my open-but-otherwise-private front lawn, it still counts as my savings, even when some of it later - and predictably - becomes "stolen savings". Likewise, I could keep it as a $50 Fed note bill in my pocket, and that would count as stolen savings when my pocket is picked.

No matter what you save in - even gold and silver - there is a cost of savings, separate and apart from return (e.g., you save seed into the ground and it multiplies). There is still a cost of saving that will never go away. The hidden confiscatory tax on long term saving of Fed dollars, which is a very real (and prohibitive) cost, is something I count as "stolen savings".

The question is not so much what counts as savings, but what is the most safe, risk-free, or otherwise cost-effective form? But it's all savings.