The inveterate spending habits of rich American households are financed by the thrift of poor Chinese peasants. The explanation of this paradox has several elements, but the contribution of financial market deregulation is a paradox in itself. The more highly developed a country’s retail financial services, the less that country saves.

The US, followed by the UK, has the most sophisticated range of products available to savers and investors in the Group of Eight rich countries. The large continental European economies – France, Germany and Italy – follow some way behind, and Japan and Russia come after that. That ranking is also the ranking of national savings rates, with the US and the UK at the bottom and Japan and Russia at the top.