For the past 25 years, our net household savings as a percentage of household disposable income averaged minus two and a quarter percent – the lowest in the OECD (where data are available), and 10 percentage points below the OECD median. Our desire for such high levels of consumption was met by borrowing the savings of foreigners.
As a consequence, our net foreign liability position is 73 percent of GDP, one of the highest ratios in the OECD, and not much different from some countries that have been at the centre of the financial crisis in the euro area.