I'm sorry to have made James's jaw drop at my claim regarding business  
savings and investment. Note that I included business depreciation  
accounts (over $900bn in 2003 -- see US Dept of Commerce, BEA, Table  
5.1, line 13; this table is more informative than the one given by Alan  
Isaac today.) Household saving is mostly absorbed in residential  
investment.  
  
I edited an article by Lauchlin Currie on this subject, published  
posthumously in HOPE, 29:3 (1997), "Implications of an Endogenous Theory  
of Growth in Allyn Young's Macroeconomic Concept of Increasing Returns"  
(incidentally, David Warsh should read this), in which there is a chart  
(p.424, Figure 2) that shows business savings (including "Savings  
arising from depreciation accounts") exceeding business investment for  
all but two years during 1959-92.  
  
If these figures are correct, Currie was right to say (in this context)  
that "the sale price of output is sufficient to cover the gross and net  
investment of business". The rest of these sale prices will cover the  
other costs of the business sector as a whole, without the need for a  
"wages fund".  
  
Isn't it the same as with the pensions debate? The individual is  
recommended to accumulate a fund out of which he hopes her pension will  
be paid eventually, but today's pensions are paid out of current (not  
past) national income (which is usually increasing), not from any fixed  
fund.  
  
Roger Sandilands