Johncee, you have missed the point of the article, and launched into a "class battle" rant, espousing a socialist ideology which is in its death-throes.

My brother is a "blue collar worker" in a factory, living in a million dollar house while I am a lower/mid level manager in a government agency, living in a dump. Shows what a good accountant can do, as well as long hours on the factory floor (I get little overtime and forbidden to take a second job).

As touched on in other posts, we are bombarded by advertising (even if we stay away from the commercial channels) so it takes discipline to "live within one's means".

One aspect of profligate consumption (aside from the huge rise in the number of fatties and obese people wandering around) is the large number of expensive toys like big boats, jet-skis and off-road vehicles I see, even in city streets and suburbs, more so in coastal areas. I'm also amazed by the number of people taking expensive holidays, and also by those who have expensive hobbies, like weekend car racing (which used to be able to be indulged in on a shoestring, now one needs a fancy 4wd and trailer just to get the race-car to the track, and racing fuel is at least $3 per litre and used in vast amounts.

One wonders where all these toys will be in a year or two if the recession bites.

Viking13... yep.. spot on. Unfortunately our Johncee is a one-trick pony, he could turn a comment on an article on flower arranging into an anachronistic rant on a class warfare that doesn't exist anymore. This is not new.

Yes, Mr Denmore, I’m afraid I do question your assumptions. I question that you draw a neat little line of cause and effect in Japan as though, being an economist and very good at drawing graphs and lines, you have somehow proven something.

There is debate whether Japan has indeed suffered anything other than a healthy correction from excess speculation in the 80’s. It slowly deflated and has taken a long time, both heresies in an economic mind.

In your neat little line, you imply that the end point is economic catastrophe, the cessation of all economic activity. That has not and will not happen. It will merely slow for a while to allow the excesses to dissipate. Yes, that causes some pain, but there is much pain now under orthodox economic theory.

Economists have far too big a say at the table. They are a classic case of never being able to see the wood for the trees. You answer general principle with detail as somehow that proves something.

When has an economic theory ever survived for long? They come along regularly in answer to an economic disaster created by and economic theory. Someone gets a Nobel Prize which inevitably implodes causing grief to untold millions.

Economic theory is no doubt good at micro managing, but societies quest for a seer to lead them to the promised land has somehow mistaken their arcane ramblings for wisdom. Central Bankers are just people with all the foibles of people. They get it as wrong as the rest of us. Witness world history.

Oh, and if you were any good at it, you could manage 0% inflation.

I can't for the life of me see the sense behind someone driving a clapped out old Hyundai and can't afford new tires or to replace the worn out muffler. The funny thing is that they have a personalised number plate and are smoking a cigarette as they tear along doing 100km/h in second gear. It's about priorities and most people never get it. They've probably got the life sized framed poster of Bruce Lee hung on a wall at home and can't afford to buy simple groceries at the end of the week.

I truly appreciate the angry sentiments of author and posters, and we have all shaken our heads at shopping trolley contents.

But the article's supportive comments are even more conclusive evidence that advertising and market propaganda works. Corporations spend billions on advertising, justified by outstanding success.

By 'propaganda', I refer to the guided conclusions that almost all of you made. By dismissing consumer behaviour as greed and stupidity, one actually validates the marketing techniques and ignores the impact of carefully proselytised terms such as 'elite', and 'losers', forcefully injected into daily language and aimed at the young; educated or otherwise. Outright propaganda are 'low unemployment', boom economy' and 'era of prosperity'.

The cumulative result is that people now equate a positive self-image with consumer items and media-shaped status. The extent of consumer defense is no greater than that of a patient addicted to pethidine.

Rather than look down on our fellow victims, we should put our marginally more independent minds to the task of removing the source of the problem. If we surf the Net in a more structured manner than we have evidently done, we will eventually discover that an increasing number of Aussies have identified the real culprits.

Not preempting our own research, it can confidently be anticipated we will discover a vast collaboration of global banks, corporations and media; who control all political parties by funding their expensive election campaigns.

If we truly want to stop the insanity and waste, join the campaign to restore egalitarian prosperity and support the Tariff Restoration Bloc (TRB). Reinstalling tariffs will reconstruct the three million full time jobs that tariff removal took from us.

Doubters about the real unemployment levels and poverty in Australia are invited to seek comment from their local Job Network agency personnel, confirming or refuting the following statistics.

Unemployment : 21%.
Incomes below $15,000: 54%.
Incomes below $29,000: 58%.

If help is needed to design surveys, just ask. By the way, the TRB is an independent single issue conglomerate of organisations and individuals, many of whom probably disagree on almost everything else.

Tony, tariffs add jobs at the expense of the consumer - it involves a wealth transfer from consumers straight to the companies that are shielded behind tariffs and the workers they employ.

Tell me why it is a good idea to do that?