Regarding financial intermediation: Focusing simply on the level of savings and concurrent bank activities misses an important engine in the history of finance -- financial innovation. The shift into modern rates of growth in the U.S. sometime around the 1810s or 1820s was preceded by a profound restructuring of financial institutions and markets. As reducing transportation costs benefits both consumer and producer, so too reducing costs of financial intermediation benefits those who would fall into far different categories if you stuck to the rigid box category interpretations of macro growth. -- Mary Schweitzer