Over at slate, Matthew Yglasias makes a point that matters. A lot.

As a society, we save for the future by channeling resources—steel, elecricity, human labor power—into the production of things that last a long time rather than things that are more perishable.

This is the only way we save for the future, stockpiling money as a nation is wore than useless, it prevents us from turning eminently perishable value (labor, which if not used today is gone for good) into value that lasts. If there is one overriding point to recession economics, this is it.