Clearly the active encouragement of urban sprawl and acquisition of ever-bigger homes have been not-altogether innocent incentives to purchase more junk [houses, mortgages and stuff]. And from there ... the flimsier the junk is, the more often it needs to be replaced, the better the economy hums along, or so the story goes.
My question to ETers more knowledgeable than I is how we are to manage decreased consumer spending. Clearly, havoc will ensue if there is an abrupt drop-off in spending. Yet it seems that current downward trends in purchase-power are already hurting Anglo-American/EU economies as it is.
What do you suppose Western economies might do to prepare for, and accommodate, what is already being recognized by increasingly debt-ridden, strapped consumers as unsustainable levels of consumption?
