/blogentry/106052 myturn's Blog: Are Premium Bonds the answer to the US savings problem? en-us Lottery Post RSS Generator /blogentry/106052#c147327 /blogentry/106052#c147327 Sun, 18 Oct 2015 07:45:17 GMT myturn <br />The second reason is the potential to win up to £1m in the monthly prize draws. The bank pays out around £715 million a year in prizes and this lures in the savers.

]]> myturn /blogentry/106052#c147326 /blogentry/106052#c147326 Sun, 18 Oct 2015 07:43:03 GMT myturn The UK Treasury holdsof £53 billion in premium bonds. If the Treasury didn't have that revenue, it would have to borrow it.

]]> myturn /blogentry/106052 /blogentry/106052 Sun, 18 Oct 2015 00:24:23 GMT myturn

The savings ratio in the US has tumbled in recent years see this chart for the official figures:bea.gov/national

Many American financial minds are focusing on how to improve it. The brains behind theFreakonomics books economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner put together a fascinating podcast earlier this month on exactly this issue.

Their investigation latched on to the great universal love of lotteries. People are indifferent about earning a few cents in interest, they concluded, but are fixated on the opportunity of getting rich quick. You don't need to be an economist to work that out, I hear you say.

They then go on to share with their fellow Americans a rather quaint and quirky 54-year-old savings plan that already does this our very own Premium Bonds marvelling at its effectiveness of how a 1m prize encourages saving.

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