You’ve now heard it so many times, you can probably repeat it in your sleep. President Obama will no doubt make the point publicly when he gets to Beijing: the Chinese need to consume more; they need— believe it or not—to become more like Americans, for the sake of the global economy.

And it’s all true. But the other side of that equation is that the US needs to save more. For the moment, American households actually are doing so. After the personal-savings rate dipped to zero in 2005, the shock of the economic crisis last year prompted people to snap shut their wallets.

In China, the household-savings rate exceeds 20%. It is partly for policy reasons. As we’ve seen, wage earners are expected to care for not only their children but their aging parents. And there is, to date, only the flimsiest (脆弱的)of publicly-funded health care and pension systems, which increases incentives for individuals to save while they are working. But China is a society that has long esteemed personal financial prudence (谨慎).There is no chance that will change anytime soon, even if the government creates a better social safety net and successfully encourages greater consumer spending.

Why does the US need to learn a little frugality (节检）？ Because healthy savings rates are one of the surest indicators of a country’s long-term financial health. High savings lead, over time, to increased investment, which in turn generates productivity gains, innovation and job growth. In short, savings are the seed corn of a good economic harvest.

The US government thus needs to act as well. By running constant deficits, it is dis-saving, even as households save more. Peter Orszag, Obama’s Budget Director, recently called the US budget deficits unsustainable and he，s right. To date, the US has seemed unable to see the consequences of spending so much more than is taken in. That needs to change. And though Hu Jintao and the rest of the Chinese leadership aren’t inclined to lecture visiting Presidents, he might gently hint that Beijing is getting a little nervous about the value of the dollar—which has fallen 15% since March, in large part because of increasing fears that America’s debt load is becoming unmanageable.

That’s what happens when you’re the world’s biggest creditor: you get to drop hints like that, which would be enough by themselves to create international economic chaos if they were ever leaked. (Every time any official in Beijing deliberates publicly about seeking an alternative to the US dollar for the $2.1 trillion China holds in reserve, currency traders have a heart attack. $ If Americans saved more and spent less，consistently over time, they wouldn’t have to worry about all that.