re: What motivates people to live above their means?

I have a theory that it stems from the Cold War.

From the period 1945-1990 we were in an economic war with the USSR. To that end we continued to keep our economy on a war footing, but instead of war materiel, we switched back to consumer goods. We were constantly encouraged to purchase goods and at the same time consumer credit was born. We set out to prove that capitalism was superior to communism and our evidence was our standard of living.

Then the wall fell.

So during the recession of 1990 it was made clear when Clinton begged Americans to purchase consumer goods to "grow the economy". So the purpose of having a hyperactive economy designed to win WWII changed to defeating communism and then it turn changed to simply growing the economy for its own sake.

We are CONSTANTLY encouraged to purchase disposable goods - even our durable goods have turned into disposable goods; cars, refrigerators, even houses themselves are now replaced far more often then they were initially designed for. We are offered easy credit for EVERYTHING, from purchasing a home, to going to college, even buying cheap Chinese disposable goods to leveraging the purchase of stocks and bonds. Even our entitlement programs seem designed to simply keep as many people participating in the economy as possible. We deride the welfare recipient who buys expensive rims for his car, yet by doing so he contributes to the economies of those who produce the rims, those who retail the rims, and the whole distribution network in between. Welfare recipients are simply doing what Americans are programmed to do: purchase consumer goods for the sake of growing the economy.

So now it's become an ingrained part of our culture to simply consume for the sake of consuming. Quality has much less meaning as we disregard the mountains of trash from last years Christmas presents to demolition debris from 20 year-old homes. We assume that we deserve resources used for our consumption economy even if those resources are in foreign lands.

What's the end game?

It's broadly recognized that gearing up our economy for WWII is what propelled us out of the Depression. We have maintained unsustainable economic activity ever since. It seems to me that should we scale back on economic activity to a more sustainable level, we would find ourselves staring right back down the barrel of our old nemesis, The Great Depression. I'm afraid the Depression was an expression of fundamental problems in our economic system that we've only masked by maintaining a war-time economy.

[/rant]