Divide the world into three zones: the United States, China, and all the rest. Since the mid-1990’s, the net current-account surplus of “all the rest” has risen by an amount that one Federal Reserve Bank economist has put at $450 billion a year, not because savings rates have increased, but because investment rates have fallen.
权且把世界分为三个区域：美国、中国和其他地区。自1990年代中期以来，“其他地区”经常账目下的净存款余额有了巨额攀升。按联邦储备银行的一位经济学家估算，为每年4500亿美金。这并不是因为储蓄率的提高，而是因为投资率的降低。以重要性顺序而言，日本、亚洲新兴工业国家和拉丁美洲不断降低的投资率，极大地驱动了以美国政府债券、以美国抵押为支撑的证券和以美国股票为支撑的贷款等形式的储蓄—这一庞大的资本账户与美国巨大的贸易逆差相当。