“…for those consumers who are approaching their spending more carefully, thoughtfully, consciously – should it take a financial crisis to prompt the change?”

I believe the elephant in the living room, which we rarely discuss, is the embedded, intrinsic schizophrenia of consumer capitalism. We get two conflicting messages — buy a lot, we need the money and you need the products -vs- buy, but judiciously, not too much, and not unnecessarily.

Urging addicts to reduce their drug use without *also* curbing the exploitative and manipulative activities of pushers won’t produce very good results. When a pusher is stalking a client, a disciplined, responsible and boundaried one won’t provide as much profit as a vulnerable or needy one. All the better if you can “hook” a user in and get them to provide a regular cash flow.

But the dual messages of spend/don’t spend, buy/don’t buy are pure crazymaking and don’t actually empower anyone. My personal belief is that companies, especially in the US, need to see the bottom line as only one element in a whole palette of business goals, and not even the primary one. Have you ever stopped to wonder why businesses in Europe aren’t considered mature or stable unless they’ve been around for 300 years? Whereas here we go for the instant fix, and would generally consider stable business performance over many years without a significant increase to be a “failure.”