Why do I need to know dead savings?
Because it’s a helpful word to know both in the corporate world and the world of politics, and you’ll definitely impress your German friends if you use it in a debate or a discussion about current affairs.
What does it mean?
If you know the words Until (dead or death) and save up (to save money), it shouldn’t be too tricky to guess what dead savings means. Used mostly in the context of government spending, it refers to the phenomenon of cutting budgets so much that things start to fall apart – in other words, saving to death.
It’s a criticism that’s often levelled at previous German governments who slashed funding for the armed forces (army) to such an extent that many believe it’s currently unfit for purpose.
dead savings also cropped up frequently when countries were putting austerity policies in place after the financial crisis. One Deutschlandfunk headline in 2015 read: “Greece: downsize or save to death?” (Greece: Shrinking healthily or saving to death?), referring to the strict spending rules that the country was placed under following a bailout from the European Central Back and the International Monetary Fund.
Less often, the word is also used to describe over-zealous budget cuts in other contexts, such as a business laying off so many staff that they can no longer operate properly.
In true German style, the word is basically a snappy neologism based on the phrase: “etwas zu Tode sparen” (to save/economise something to death). It’s not clear when the idiom first started being used as a verb, but it’s a classic example of how simple it can be to create new words in the German language.
Use it like this:
I fear that the federal government will save digitization to death.
I’m concerned that the federal government is going to economise digitalisation to death.
The boss saved our project to death again.
The boss has economised our project into the ground yet again.