[green_man_lives]

I think it's easy to poo-poo people spending their income on a bunch of material stuff, especially as someone who hardly consumes and saves my money neurotically.

But in the US we are indoctrinated to believe that conspicuous consumption is the best thing we can do for our country. Saving hurts our economy and spending drives it forward. Every mainstream economist talks about savings rates like they are a bad thing.

The system has been engineered to simultaneously require people to save a majority of each paycheck in order to live well after they are no longer useful as laborers, but also we are constantly told to spend spend spend.

I say this just because I don't think that it is productive to place the blame on individuals within the system instead of the system itself. I think your analysis is correct though.