A high level of national savings is problematic, whether the savings are used within the country or lent to the rest of the world

We will take the examples of China and Germany. In China, the nation's high level of savings has mainly led to a high level of investment combined with a high level of debt. It therefore appears that the Chinese economy is doubly fragile: inefficient investment in construction and infrastructure and excessive domestic debt. In Germany, the nation's high level of savings has mainly led to the accumulation of external assets, however, these external assets have been negative for German savers. Until the subprime crisis, this mainly involved loans to peripheral euro-zone countries to finance the real estate bubble; since the subprime crisis, it has involved purchases of foreign bonds (US bonds in particular) with very low yields. So the fact that the level of the national savings rate is too high is not an advantage, on the contrary in fact .