I read this article on msnbc.com today.  The headline reads:

Truck builders looking back to the future
Automakers mull revival of compact pickups to lure gas-pinched buyers

I quote:

The biggest problem for truck sellers is that a lot of truck buyers never needed trucks in the first place. Once gas prices made fueling an unneeded truck prohibitively expensive, those buyers fled the market like rats from a capsized garbage scow.

Why? Because these truck buyers used their mighty 4×4s for the crucial task of “hauling air,” said Mike Accavitti, director of Dodge brand marketing and communications for Chrysler.

Indeed, a full quarter of former truck buyers fall into the category Ford calls, “never, never, nevers,” said Mike Crowley, group marketing plan manager for Ford trucks and SUVs.

“That means they never tow, they never haul, and they never go off-road,” he said. They might occasionally haul a load of mulch or shuttle a kid off to college, but that was the extent of their truck use.

*****

So, when you hear someone say they “need” an SUV or they “need” a pickup truck, you may justifiably question their “need” and determine if it’s, in fact, a want.

What this article also illustrates is how masses of people are persuaded, through advertising and “keeping up with the Joneses”, into buying things for which they have no real need.

For a nation perpetually in debt, it makes me wonder how pliant our sensibilities really are.