Consumers, they are a-changin'

Rick Newman at US News reports on seventeen ways that American consumers are changing their spendthrift ways, all of which will make an economic recovery much more difficult. The first seven are excerpted below and it seems that our household is way ahead of the curve here, adopting all of these measures five or ten years ago.

Less credit, more cash. Consumer borrowing has fallen by record amounts, as Americans pay down debt and adjust to banks lowering their credit card limits.
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The end of the monthly payer. Many consumers used to be comfortable piling up debt as long as their income could cover the monthly payments. No more.
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Greater suspicion. Banks wrecked the economy, then cut lending and raised fees. The government prevented a depression, but not before giving billions to Wall Street titans.
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More resourcefulness. If you can't count on anybody else, then you're likely to rely more on yourself.
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Less brand loyalty. Millions of consumers traded down to store brands over the past couple of years—and many plan to stick with them.
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Smaller is bigger. It goes without saying that many things are getting smaller rather than bigger, including household budgets and people's ambitions.
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A rental rebound. The "ownership society" is over. After peaking a few years ago, home ownership rates, not surprisingly, have started a long journey downward as foreclosures shake out people who couldn't afford their homes...

The good news is that, at some point in our future, we'll stop hearing business news personalities reporting the quarterly GDP numbers and blithely noting that consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of the economy.