Everybody knows Americans don’t save. The phrase “money saved” in modern culture invariably refers to an act of spending money, not saving it. As in “Look how much money I saved when I went shopping!” The trouble hits when hard times arrive, because that sort of “saving” requires spending and spending always requires having. This wouldn’t be a problem except that so many non-Americans are doing something so un-American: saving greenback. Dollars are being saved by the boatload, just not by Americans. If every foreign mattress got emptied at once, America would be liquidated piecemeal to pay each foreign creditor. Fortunately for America, somebody in Washington had the good sense to notice that Americans don’t save, but they DO collect. Minting commemorative quarters was pure economic genius. If every American completes their collecton of the planned 50-state set of commemorative quarters, that’s $3.7 billion in earned income that stays at home for a rainy day. 3-point-7 billion ain’t pocket change — well, it is in this case, but with 300 million pockets. But if we do the same with twenties, and our next war can be paid for with cash!
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