Several guests on news/talk shows such as Charlie Rose have recently (for the past several months) spouted the same fallacy, that we need to spend (buy new goods/services), rather than save, to stimulate the economy to get out of this recession.

The truth is that all three things somebody can do with his/her money, spend it or pay off debts or put it in savings accounts, have exactly the same amount of total benefit toward stimulating the economy:
- Purchasing consumer goods provides money to retailers/producers.
- Paying off credit cards provides money to credit-card banks, which they can then re-invest or loan etc., repairing debts that would have been "toxic" if never paid off.
- Putting the money into bank savings accounts provides money to savings banks, which they can then re-invest or loan etc.
- The only thing that doesn't immediately stimulate the economy is hoarding cash, such as stuffing it in a mattress. But conceiling money like that has an indirect effect of reducing inflation, which may be valuable at some times, although maybe not now during the recession.