Consumer confidence, or sanity?

Today's NY Times says that people are "less interested in consuming than at any time in the last four decades." I think that's a good phrase; it does not assume anything about panic, hardship or "consumer confidence" but rather states accurately what is being measured. Being less interested in consuming certainly sounds a lot healthier than a society that's lost its confidence.

The bubble economy may have been enabled by easy credit, but I suspect it was driven by a competitive consumerist psychology that only became unfashionable about two months ago. Something I can't quite put my finger on tells me that it's now fashionable to buy a bit less and a bit smaller.

It feels a little like a power outage at work. All of the artificially important things that people do in order to succeed become blessedly impossible, so people sit down wherever there's some natural light, and chat until the computers turn back on.

Happy "buy nothing day."