When it comes to consumer spending, attitudes and brain chemistry seem to matter a lot.
While people might need to buy a certain amount of groceries to survive or a train ticket so they can get to work, if they don't feel like shelling out for something that is less than essential, they can choose to keep their wallets shut. Or, they can add surplus funds to savings accounts or use the money to pay down existing obligations.
If enough people make those kinds of choices, then it naturally leads to an overall softening of demand -- and, often, a broad-based economic downturn.
Sometimes, of course, people have a hard time saying "no," because spending money triggers a pleasurable response in certain parts of the brain that can trigger addictive behavior. However, once heavy spenders -- like heroin addicts -- accept that they have a problem, bad habits -- and spendthrift attitudes -- can change.
If enough of them do, as the following report, "Hi, My Name Is Fred, And I'm Addicted to Credit Cards," from the Wall Street Journal's Jennifer Levitz, seems to suggest is now the case, it can only add to the downward economic momentum.
In the Debt-Soaked Economic Slump, Americans Find Solace in Support Groups
After years of free spending -- $200 jeans, a silver BMW and other grown-up toys -- Michael Wagner had racked up $25,000 in credit-card debt and was behind on his mortgage and car payments. Creditors called night and day. It was a "hopeless downward spiral," he says.
Then, last November, the 34-year-old sales manager for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch joined the "Sunday morning breakfast club," a group of debtors who meet weekly over coffee and eggs to share money woes. Mr. Wagner says he is now on the road to financial recovery, helped by his discovery that "I wasn't alone."
Far from it. In the debt-soaked economic slump of 2008, growing numbers of in-hock Americans are finding solace, and sometimes solutions, in support groups for the overextended. Gatherings like Mr. Wagner's are springing up at churches, colleges and coffee shops.
Meetup.com, a Web site that organizes physical and virtual meetings, says it now serves 138 groups who gather in person to talk about debt management, up from 24 a year ago. Debtors Anonymous -- a cousin of Alcoholics Anonymous -- reports greater demand particularly in Southern California and Arizona, areas hit hard by the downturn.
