Has the Recession made the American consumer thriftier?

From the New Yorker, by James Surowiecki

For all the uncertainty about the current state of the economy, everyone is sure of one thing: this recession has permanently remade American consumers, turning them from spendthrifts into tightwads. From cover stories on “The New Frugality” to stories about cheapness as a new status symbol and pundits’ repeated analogies to the lessons inculcated by the Great Depression, the message is the same: there has been a fundamental change in American consumer behavior, one that will endure after the recession ends, returning us, as one economist put it, to “the days of ‘Leave It to Beaver.’ ” Continue reading…