Housing hogs…

Rounding up “creeping aspirations,” CNN reports that “The median size of a newly built home in 1970 was 1,500 square feet… by 2000, it had increased to 2,300 square feet, even though the median family’s income hasn’t changed much.”

An economist attributes this to “expenditure cascade,” in which everyone tries to catch up with the Jones. Perhaps the baby boomers, constituting America’s consumer center of gravity and now at their earning peaks, also account for this bloating of expectations.

Time to go long wheel chair manufacturers?