I just ran across a random tidbit of information that got me thinking. Proctor and Gamble has a product called FreBreze. People spray this chemical around their house to make it seem as if a fresh breeze had been blowing through (because, of course, we would never want to actually open our windows). This is a product that absolutely no one needs. It’s sold in the classic way – through massive advertising guided by people with PhDs in psychology. So here is the tidbit: annual sales of FreBreze were greater than $800M last year. Here is some perspective: according the World Bank, there are twenty countries with 2007 GDPs less than this amount. This is what I call inconspicuous consumption – the little things we spend our money on that we hardly notice – and if we didn’t spend it, we would hardly notice that, too.