Talk:Forced saving

Requested move 6 March 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. Appears to be the correct way forward for now. Of course, editors can continue to discuss notability, redirection or whatever other disposition appropriate to this stub article. There is a definite difference between "saving", the activity, and "savings", the specific asset. Have a Great Day and Happy Publishing! (closed by page mover)  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  17:47, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

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Forced savings → Forced saving – Correcting the name. This article is about the flow variable “saving”, not about the stock variable “savings”. See paragraph 2 of Saving. Currently the correct name redirects to the incorrect name here. Loraof (talk) 14:40, 6 March 2018 (UTC)--Relisting. Dekimasuよ! 17:25, 13 March 2018 (UTC)--Relisting. —usernamekiran(talk) 17:52, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: This may be somewhat of a WP:NOUN issue. In my experience, the noun (the accumulated amount of money) is often called the "savings", not the "saving". The one source that is cited in the article, something from Financial Times, uses "savings", not "saving". —BarrelProof (talk) 20:56, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

They’re both nouns. I know this is an “appeal to authority”, but in my experience as an economics professor doing research and teaching econ at all levels from college freshman to doctoral level classes, the flow variable (income per unit of time not spent) is “saving” and the stock variable (the portion of accumulated wealth placed in savings accounts) is “savings”. See Kotlikoff, Laurence J. (2008). "Saving". In David R. Henderson (ed.). Concise Encyclopedia of Economics (2nd ed.). Indianapolis: Library of Economics and Liberty. ISBN 978-0865976658. OCLC 237794267.. There are also sources (including the reference you noted from this article) that use them interchangeably as the flow noun, as our article Saving points out, but there’s no reason to reinforce sloppiness in wording. And given that sources can be found for (1) authors who use them interchangeably, and (2) authors who only call the flow variable “saving”, it’s best to go with the version that none of the authors would object to. Loraof (talk) 04:25, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

• Here are three textbooks that only use “saving” for the flow variable:
  • William Baumol, Economic Dynamics, third edition, p. 15 and elsewhere.
  • David Romer, Advanced Macroeconomics, p. 16 and elsewhere.
  • N. Gregory Mankiw, Macroeconomics, third edition, p. 62 and elsewhere.

Loraof (talk) 14:58, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

That may be a particular definition convention among a group of specialists, but the article does cite a source that appears to refer to the topic of the article as "savings", and that is the only source cited in the article. —BarrelProof (talk) 18:38, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

But as I pointed out above, the source cited in our article here uses both words interchangeably. Loraof (talk) 21:14, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation. I don't object to the proposed move (absent a need for some disambiguation with the entirely different concept discussed below). I hope the article can be improved, as it currently seems like a mere WP:DICTIONARY entry. Also, I do not see good sourcing for the idea that it is improper to use the "saving" and "savings" terms interchangeably. As you acknowledge, some well regarded sources don't appear to draw the firm distinction that you are drawing, and I don't think we should declare that they are wrong. I notice that paragraph 2 of Saving appears to be unsourced, but is declaring that the terminology used by Investopedia (and presumably also by the Financial Times) is wrong. I also notice that the hatnote that you recently added to Saving says that "savings" is a different topic from "saving", and the reader needs to be cautioned about potential confusion, but it seems clear that this is not something everyone agrees about, since some well regarded sources do not draw that careful distinction. —BarrelProof (talk) 00:31, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

• Another key definition: A quick web search confirms that there is another, more common but very different, meaning for the term "forced saving(s)". This refers to a regularized periodic saving activity that is imposed by a rule (either a self-imposed or externally imposed rule), rather than being the consequence of a lack of availability of purchasable goods. It is common to refer to the practice of making regular periodic payments to a savings account or investment account as "forced saving(s)", as contrasted with waiting for some excess amount to accumulate in a checking account and then transferring large lump sums to a retirement account sporadically. One example is often called "automatic saving" or "pay yourself first". Payment to a social security program is sometimes also called a "forced saving(s)", as one is forced to contribute to the funding pool from which one will eventually receive benefits. The term is also used for the practice of excess payroll tax deduction, resulting in the accumulation of an amount that later arrives as a refund of the accumulated surplus. More people are familiar with this rule-imposed periodic-payment meaning of "forced saving(s)" than with the definition given in this article. I don't know whether that other type of "forced saving(s)" is discussed somewhere on Wikipedia, but I suspect it is. If that kind of forced saving is discussed on Wikipedia, this topic will need disambiguation, since the other sense of the term is more well known to most people. —BarrelProof (talk) 18:38, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
• Suggest redirecting to Shortage#Effects, since this seems like it will be a stub permanently. For the time being I've put a reference to this article there. Dekimasuよ! 15:33, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.