Low interest rates good for borrowers, bad for savers

Americans are saving more of their earnings than they have in years, and that's a good thing. But unfortunately, we're not being rewarded for it the way we were in flusher years.

By now, everyone has heard about the government's unprecedented actions to drop interest rates to historic lows so cash-strapped individuals, businesses and banks can borrow on more forgiving terms. The down side of this is that bank account holders are now getting rock-bottom interest returns on their money.

Currently, we're saving around 3% of our collective income. That's not really an achievement to be proud of -- not yet, anyway --- but it's still a great step up from where we were a couple of years ago when the U.S. had a negative savings rate, meaning that we as a nation were literally spending more than we made.