Our nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) is a function of consumer spending. We are prodded, cajoled, enticed, and engaged in the spending exercise, and all that happens because money makes the world go round. Between 65 and 75 percent of our GDP is based on consumer spending, which explains why in the wake of the economic meltdown of 2001 (post 9/11), then-President George W. Bush encouraged us to spend to spark an economic recovery. Some of us spend, though, to our detri