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It's interesting actually that it's probably not that Japanese are conservative about their savings, but that we North Americans are woefully inept with ours!
My best memories were from Nara and Kyoto - exploring the imperial buildings and gardens. I learned Japanese while I was there and could answer the phone convincingly after 6 months (people actually didn't realize I wasn't Japanese on the phone which was a bit of a problem.) Once I learned the language and understood the culture better, it was very disillusioning. Back then (this is in 1991, and I've heard there's been alot of change since then) people would never tell you what they really meant - they would always talk in a circle around their answer. They would say yes when meaning no, etc. They would gain their esteem from the group they belonged to rather than their own accomplishments, so discussions were like talking office politics. At the first firm, the staff would spend more than 50% of their day schmoozing with their superiors to advance politically, then finally start working in the afternoon and ending up working late and still not finish what a normal person could do during a normal day. Advancement had no relation to ability - it was strictly politics. Sigh.
It's well known that many older Japanese people keep huge sums of cash savings in their houses. There are occasionally almost comical stories in the newspaper about houses getting broken into and the thieves walking out with obscene amounts of money.
I'm a huge fan of cash in general. I do value seeing my money and hate the idea of all my transactions being logged. I totally agree with the premise of the article, I've been doing this for years.