Germany's Sparkassen are publicly held savings banks. No other advanced industrial economy relies as heavily on such small, publicly-owned financial institutions to fuel its economy. Mark Cassell explores the unique entity that is the German public banking system and the lessons it offers to banking systems worldwide.

The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and BusinessWeek bestseller Bank On Yourself: The Life-Changing Secret to Growing and Protecting Your Financial Future reveals the secrets to taking back control of your financial future that Wall Street, banks, and credit card companies don’t want you to know. Can you imagine what it would be like to look forward to opening your account statements because they always have good news and never any ugly surprises? More than 100,000 Americans of all ages, incomes, and backgrounds are already using Bank On Yourself to grow a nest-egg they can predict and count on, even when stocks, real estate, and other investments tumble. You’ll meet some of them and hear their stories of how Bank On Yourself has helped them reach a wide variety of short- and longterm personal and financial goals and dreams in this book.

This work proposes a new approach to welfare: a social policy that goes beyond simple income maintenance to foster individual initiative and self-sufficiency. It argues for an asset-based policy that would create a system of saving incentives through individual development accounts (IDAs) for specific purposes, such as college education, homeownership, self-employment and retirement security. In this way, low-income Americans could gain the same opportunities that middle- and upper-income citizens have to plan ahead, set aside savings and invest in a more secure future.