It's something I was discussing with a friend of mine. It's very easy to spend money in the US. It's very hard to save money. We reduce friction to consumption, but we put barriers on savings. It's also just simply skipped in school. We don't teach fiscal responsibility to most kids but they are bombarded on TV nonstop with calls for consumerism and even associating that with quality of life and people. I'm not saying they're justified in wasting their money on conspicuous spending, but it's not just solely irresponsibility. There's a whole chain of bad situations that leads to the irresponsible behavior. Good mentorship when young, good parenting, good education, these all make major differentiations and none of which have to do with the individual but everything to do with the environment they grew up in, which they did not choose. By the time they are adults, there's little choice left for them to make. Why not do something that brings immediate gratification? They can't afford to move to a better place, so they choose something that makes them feel good, at least for the short term.

I neither agree nor defend this, but I am posting just to say, it's more complicated than them being just leeches on society, like I think some comments are implying. Forgive me if I'm wrong in my assumption, but I see the argument so much without so much as a bare-minimum attempt to try to understand the others' situation.