Trendy spending

The Post brings us a silly article that perpetuates a silly premise--one that helped get us into this mess in the first place: one's personal financial decisions reflect the nation's finances rather than one's own. Why are spending levels a trend? It's just... silly. The piece takes a handful of examples of people making large purchases and tries--and fails--to tie them into a trend piece. Oooh, someone just bought season tickets to the Caps, and someone else got a BMW. Maybe they can afford it, maybe they can't. Maybe it'll be a good investment, maybe it won't. There are so many factors that will determine the sagacity of those decisions, but more than anything else, they're personal choices. So why is the Post wasting our time with, 'here are a few people who are spending, even though it's a rough economy.' I mean, when it was a good economy, people should have spent primarily according to whether or not they had the money, and now that it's a rough economy, people should still spend primarily according to whether they have the money. I'm not saying that the rate of GDP growth, or the Dow or other indexes and the paper wealth they represent have nothing to do with perceived wealth or future finances, but who bases their personal decisions on what other people are doing, regardless of what they're ready for and what's going on in their life? Apparently, enough people do that the Post thinks doing otherwise is extraordinary.