Mindless Consumption - "Spending money we don't have, on things we don't need, to create impressions that won't last, on people we don't care about."

“Having your entire financial worth wrapped up in a house and living on its nominal value is a risky situation. But in a way, [this] is only following cultural norms. Homes today fulfill much more than a need for shelter. They are physical representations of our tastes and the lives we lead — or wish we led. Last year, Los Angeles Times columnist Meghan Daum chronicled a lifetime of housing lust in a memoir whose title sums up a common attitude: ‘Life Would Be Perfect if I Lived in That House’. “Few things in this world are capable of eliciting such urgent, even painful yearning,” she writes. – from ‘Housing: Real insanity’, Canadian Business magazine, April 25, 2011

“We are being persuaded to spend money we don’t have, on things we don’t need, to create impressions that won’t last, on people we don’t care about.” —Tim Jackson, economist, from talk at TED.com