Consumer Culture - There's a bit of disagreement when you read these two articles about personal spending. Slate talks about the brand name cache of Starbucks coffee, BMW cars and Godiva chocolates for the middle class to outwardly demonstrate status while Salon informs us that really it's not lattes that are sending Americans into bankruptcy. Guess maybe Suze Orman's advice about buying stocks instead of your daily latte wouldn't matter that much after all...but it sure did sell her a lot of books!

The Slate article offers the hypothesis that "everyone is willing to pay more for something...so long as it speaks to a longing in the soul." So, gentle reader, what is your precious commodity?