Low saving is sapping America's economic vitality. Since 1980, the personal saving rate has declined from 8% of after-tax income-a rate that prevailed over most of the postwar period-to just 5% today. Americans save less than half as much as Europeans and just a third as much as the Japanese. This deficiency has long been dismissed as a temporary phenomenon driven by demographic trends that would soon reverse. But increasingly it looks to be more chronic-and dangerous. Over the past decade, foreign money made up for America's savings shortfall. But the U.S. can no longer rely on that stopgap. Slow growth in Europe and Japan, along with competing claims for precious capital from the new market economies of Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, have slowed the flow of foreign funds to the U.S. Without sufficient capital, future generations are destined to suffer lower living standards as the U.S. economy loses ground against global competitors