One more point to be made about this discussion: The issue of whether you should tell underdeveloped nations to "encourage" savings is political. That is, you are talking about making one decision over another. The very distinction between "investment" and "consumption:" is political. (Think not? Why is a plow an investment and a washing machine consumption?) One of the most serious problems occurring in many under- developed nations at the moment is the phenomenon of young men leaving their wives to support themselves and their children. This is a serious problem with serious future ramifications. It is not going to be resolved by talking about "savings". Keynes' focus on consumption permitted western "free enterprise" governments for the first time to talk about redistributions of wealth and income within society as if it were actually GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY!! Oh! so it is OKAY to give government funds to women to stay home with small children because ... it primes the pump and helps the economy and will keep free enterprise going good and strong. The problem is in the need to justify humanitarian actions on the part of government -- the need to justify thinking of government as merely another institution for the purpose of achieving certain social goals, as the family is also -- the need to justify this as "economically necessary" because it leads to more growth and a stronger market economy. So in dismantling a Keynesian argument and replacing it with an even OLDER argument about savings, understand you are not doing it in a vacuum. YOu are also talking about dismantling the redistributive policies and shortsighted educational failures that have led to the wretched conditions that some people -- sorry -- writen wrong -- that might offer peolple, mostly children, trapped in these wretched conditions at least some hope. So you better know what you are talking about. And I do not think the answer is in going back to Keynes or pre-Keynes. The answer lies in finding a macroeconomic theory that can accept complexity. And coming to grips with the concept of government as an institution that is just as much a part of the economy as any other institution, an institution with different characteristics, but an institution that is designed to meet social goals that cannot be met efficiently in other ways. -- Mary Schweitzer