I feel this is another down-stream effect of weak social support. If a country offers reasonable basic pension and healthcare, retirees will spend because they know if they run out of cash they have their basics covered. Without this support of course they will hoard money.

I saw this living in Norway where people in general tend to save less aggressively because they know if things go bad they are covered. And it worries me in my country of Australia where we are following the US model of ever reducing social services. It makes great short term savings but I feel there are these kind of longer term effects we pay the price for. And these effects are hard for many people to consider when its that far ahead so politically it is unlikely to change.