Actually the Personal Saving Rate Is Very Low

Robert Schiller had an interesting piece in the NYT on how uncertainty about the economy may be leading to extraordinary low long interest rates. However, he adds in the strange comment that savings is not low, in spite of the very low return available to savers:

"Yet according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, personal saving as a fraction of disposable personal income stood at 4.9 percent for the United States in December. That may not be an impressive level, but it’s not particularly low...