[johnea]

> The notion that Americans can afford less than they used to is essentially false

To use my, now standard, tagline: This is total bullshit...

The Economist often has insightful writing, but the premise of this article is just wrong.

Like the entire field of "economics", this article is inaccurate, because of basing it's assertion on "Lies, Damn lies, and Statistics".

Using a mean to judge any kind of society wide assessment is just not going to be accurate in any modern economic analysis...