This OP suffers from the same delusion as a lot of financial professionals. The "Investment capital" that he talks about mostly goes to buy and sell stocks and

This OP suffers from the same delusion as a lot of financial professionals. The "Investment capital" that he talks about mostly goes to buy and sell stocks and bonds. These are not real capital investments, but wagers on future prices. I bought $5000 of Google stock last year. To say that the $5000 did anything to help Google is foolish. I bought someone's bet and now he has $5000 more while I have $5000 less. He may have invested it in something useful (buying goods or services) but more likely he used it to make another wager. No true value was created, though the brokers and money managers (like the OP) take their cut. On the other hand, if I had purchased government bonds, the bond money would have been injected much more broadly into the economy via capital spending or entitlements. Don't pretend that money that doesn't go to government bonds would go to building bridges. Should or national savings rate be higher? Yes. Should we move toward a balanced budget? Yes. Should we try to fix these things while on the edge of a double-dip recession? Most certainly not.