Huh? continued

Huh?

New issue of Wired (not online yet so no link ... yet)
Piece on "Price of Technolust"
American's shell out 5% of their budgets on gadgets & goodies.

Comparison is '99 to '05
Samples :
Internet access 7% of budgets and up 216% in $$$ spent (but so much more available, I slashed the amount of pulp (magazines, newspapers) that come into the house ... offsetting some costs)

Residential Phone Service 26% down 25% in $$$ spent (switch to cellphones?)

Cable & Satellite service 24% up 72% in $$$ spent
But we have many more channels now, more choices

Meanwhile Televisions are about 5% down a whopping 76% in cost!
Gimme that big old flat screen!

Update (7/23/07) the Wired link is live (with graphics):
Americans' Technolust Spending Is as Hot and Heavy as Ever:
"High tech gear gets cheaper every year. So we're spending a lot less on it, right? Um, no. In fact, the proportion of US household budgets spent on tech products and services — computers, game consoles, cell phone service, cable, TVs — has held steady at about 5 percent for most of the past decade. We're just spending that money — more than we pay for health insurance — on different stuff. For instance, we spend a lot less on TVs (as prices have dropped) but more on cable and satellite services (we need our HBO). Here's a peek at how our quest to stay wired hits our wallets."