Over the past year, households have saved only about 1 percent of their after-tax income, compared with about 8 percent on average from 1950 to 2000. In the public sector, the federal-budget deficit has been larger in the past, at least relative to the  1  Eileen Mauskopf and David Reifschneider, of the Board’s, staff contributed greatly to the preparation of these remarks.
Other indicators include the ratio of impaired assets to total assets, the ratio of liquid to total assets, the return on assets or equity, and the institution’s exposure to foreign exchange, interest rate or capital market variation. BIS Review 12/2010  1  The indicators help to assess the current health of the financial system, but they offer limited insight into possible future challenges.