Life In Japan: “Savings”

This first part of this story offers insight into the way the U.S. government works. The last part is another inspiring tale about Japan.

The summer when I was twelve-years-old, I had a thriving lawn-cutting business. Understand that I lived in a mobile home park. So my jobs were pretty much already “lined up”. In two rows on opposite sides of the single lane that serviced the entire community were somewhere around 200 trailers, each surrounded by tiny lawns.

(The photo on the right is a current one of the trailer park from Google Satellite Views. Now the entire area is entirely developed but back when I was a boy, it was surrounded only by fields and woods.)

Not bragging, I have to say I did a good job. So the word spread and I got very busy. After each day of cutting and trimming grass, I put my daily take in a jar.

About the middle of summer, the jar was getting extremely full . . . and very tempting. Gosh, there were a few things I really needed or wanted. So I started replacing the money with little white IOU slips. By the end of the summer, there was no money, just white slips. My savings now consisted of promissory notes.

And that’s how the U.S. government works!

Actually, it’s how most U.S. citizens function. The nation is up to its neck in “white slips” both personally and institutionally. I can honestly say I know very few people who are good at saving money. Piling up credit card debt appears to be the national pastime.

To be completely fair and accurate, however, in terms of actual personal savings rates in countries with advanced economies, Finland (-1.2%) and Poland (3.0%) are the worst, Sweden (17.1%) and Switzerland (17.6%) are on top, and the U.S. is in the middle (8.1%). By the way, these are figures from 2019. The U.S. is certainly not as bad as I expected.

Anyway, to the point of this story.

Just this past May, a gentleman estimated to be in his 70s or 80s — who he is still is a mystery since he never identified himself and to this day remains anonymous — walked into a government office in Yokosuka City. He put six bundles of 10,000-yen notes, a total of six million yen as pictured above, on the counter and announced: “These are my savings going back to when I was in elementary school. Please accept it as a donation.”

That’s the equivalent of almost a half million U.S. dollars.

Sixty-some years worth of SAVINGS!

Cash . . . not white slips.

I feel humbled.