Yes it boils down to this. People don't count things that increase your networth as savings (or in other words: nothing counts as savings). Therefore everyone's savings is somewhere around $0.
I differentiate between savings and investments. For example, my own savings give me the ability to modestly live for 1 year without work AND without liquidating my investments.
If I had everything invested and nothing saved in bank account, I might get into situation when I need to liquidate my investments ASAP, which could be very unfortunate, timing-wise.
If I had everything invested and nothing saved in bank account, I might get into situation when I need to liquidate my investments ASAP, which could be very unfortunate, timing-wise.