I doubt that applies to the people profiled above. They don't sound Starbucks, Whole Foods folks. Seriously, though, the vast majority of our economy is consumer-driven; if people stopped spending tomorrow, we see another Great Recession, and maybe even a depression. Perhaps our current economy isn't desirable, but moral jeremiads don't really address the structural issue. 

Secondly, housing, medical costs, and college are now much more expensive (as a percentage of income) than they used to be. Most people can't and don't go without the first two, and most parents want to send their kids to college (people with undergraduate degrees make so much more money over the course of their lifetimes than people without). I suspect that those increases are as signifiant, if not more, to people's difficulties with savings than Starbucks.