Seamus’ excellent post today reminded me to post something I looked at some weeks ago. The September Budgetary and Economic Statistics from the Department of Finance carried some really useful information in Table 25 on investment, Gross National income, and gross and net savings. The figure below shows the evolution of gross and net national saving and the gross total available for investment from 1995 to 2010.
We can see clearly from the figure that the spike in net national savings in 2007 is rapidly diminished, with only 21 million euros put aside, so to speak, in 2009, and 1951 million euros in 2010. Occasionally the notion gets floated that there is a load of money somewhere in a bank account to be taxed. This should be dispelled rather quickly, as households don’t seem to be saving their way through the crisis much at all. In addition, the total available for investment seems to have dropped off, with no rebound in sight, which is a worry.