A Nation Of Penny-Pinchers

Grant McCracken wonders about new spending habits:

The standing expectation is that consumers who scale down will scale back up when prosperity and credit return. But it is possible that the new, more modest, positively Amsterdamian, consumption pattern will prove sticky. This is what happened in Japan in the 1990s.  Consumers gave up free spending ways and never came back.

And maybe an era of slower growth and greater thrift is exactly what this culture needs. It's not all about economic growth, you know.