I was listening to an interview on the economy on a Swiss radio podcast and heard a comment that really smacked in the gut:

Swiss employment law makes layoffs easier than in EU nations; not surprisingly, layoffs are on the rise there. In this interview, the moderator asked for a definition of "mass layoffs", asking the interviewee, "is this more than an American problem"?

ugh.

It's one thing to read about the recession in the media, but it's entirely more real when you see it with your eyes.

This is an empty freight train, parked on an unused spur not far from my house. The cars extend for over a mile. These are cars not engaged in commerce. They're not going to and from the harbors and freight terminals. They're not carrying goods, because nobody is buying them.

The first time I saw it, and understood what it was, I felt like I had just seen a ghost.

My question: Are you seeing the recession? What does it look like?

Judith Levine manages to mock just about everyone in her nevertheless great article on Salon.com, The Case Against Thrift. Levine, who a few years ago wrote Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping, has found herself a minor celebrity among folks newly (re-)converted to thrift.

Pointing out that while several world civilizations contain ascetic and self-denial elements, thrift—which she defines as temperance, prudence and self-denial (I would rather think thrift the economic practice of peace, patience, and self-control)—is a Christian virtue.

And that is a bad thing, according to Levine. While primitive cultures produce bounty for the purpose of having a harvest-season party, we live for our IRAs. "They" enjoy themselves today, while we deprive ourselves for the moral indulgence of it.

But she's not done: American culture may grow as secular as it wishes, we still retain what she calls our primeval “puritan gene.”

We tend to get all legalistic about our thrift, no matter what our religion is. After all, aren’t carbon offsets as voluntary sin tax? Looking at her own retirement fund, she notes:

For decades I've dutifully put money into my IRA. This year, like everyone else, I lost half of it. Did thrift reward me? I cannot say it gave me much spiritually, unless you count a sense of security. And that turns out to have been false.

So I have reflected on what else I might have done with that money. I could have spent six months in Paris drinking wine and perfecting my French, financed a small movie, or bought oceanfront property in Nova Scotia. What effects would I have reaped from my profligacy? Knowledge, adventure, pleasure: riches perhaps exceeding those of a fully funded retirement account.

Turning to the Bible, she then concludes:

You can’t take it with you. That's what St. Paul told Timothy before warning him that the love of money was the root of all evil: "For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." What lesson does the recession teach? Live now. Be merry. For tomorrow we -- or the stock market bull -- may die.

Here’s where Levine is wrong: the binary of parsimony and indulgence is false. The opposite of dour thrift—of re-using your dental floss and tut-tutting over people going to first-run movies—is not luxuriousness: both are individualistic and materialistic.

No, the opposite of joyless trift is generous thrift.

The trick is love, as it always is. Thrift without love quickly becomes legalism, inhospitality, joylessness and judgmentalism. But thrift informed by, or driven by love makes sacrifice possible, makes community possible.

Levine calls thrift the “new abstinence.” Thrift gone narcissistic, perhaps. But thrift covered in love: that’s when you refuse to waste because your money belongs to the whole community—it’s not really your money at all. It’s called stewardship: taking care of something on behalf of someone else.