The 4%

Slate recently had an article entitled Does Inequality Matter? How “expenditure cascades” are squeezing the American middle class which advanced the thesis that "rising inequality has driven many of the 99 percent into a financial ditch". After noting the massive increase in the cost of weddings, and the climbing size of housing they conclude:

Many social critics wag their fingers at what they perceive to be frivolous luxury spending. But that misses the point that all consumption norms are local. It’s not just the rich who spend more when they get more money. Everyone else does, too. The mansions of the rich may seem over the top to people in the middle, but the same could be said of American middle-class houses as seen by most of the planet’s 7 billion people.

Rather than the OWS talk of the 1%, why shouldn't I simply view the US as the 4%? Perhaps a lot of this could also be adjusted simply by turning off the tube - cutting back on the amount of advertising seen? Why should "keeping up with the Joneses" be seem as something that, like mindless automatons, Americans are simply required to do rather than being an example of irresponsible financial behaviour?