[ahartman00]

These conspicuous consumers... are a very important part of the economy :) Think about how many engineering and design jobs there are just creating fancier/faster/prettier/etc versions of basic goods. And if the consumer if happy, whats wrong? A lot of that money would just be sitting in a bank somewhere otherwise. Yes, I know some people would donate it to charity.

"but there are plenty of people, men and women, for whom "

Sorry, I didn't mean to generalize all people. I should have said "a large portion of people".