Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Wealth and Income of the American People (1924).pdf/95



There is a common idea that bank deposits, especially savings bank deposits, furnish a measure or at least an indication of the national wealth. They may, or they may not. There is no fundamental connection between the two things. Money that is put into the savings banks represents the accumulations of some people. The savings banks must invest it in some way. It is invested largely in mortgages on real estate. If the mortgage loans are utilized for new building the savings are translated into terms of fixed property. The final expression of the savings of the people as a whole is in fact the buildings, railways, etc., that they have accumulated. It may be, however, that the man who mortgages his house does not utilize the money for the improvement of his property, or the acquisition of another house, but instead thereof buys an automobile which he wears out during the next five years. If in the meanwhile, he has not saved enough to pay off the mortgage on his house he may eventually lose the house and then have neither house nor automobile. Savings bank deposits may, therefore, indicate no more than the aggrandizement of one class of people at the expense of others; and another class may be impoverishing itself more rapidly than the thrifty is saving.

Similarly some people may be rich in their ownership