A good theory
Personally, I blame credit cards.
My dad was kibbitzing with one of his buddies about how cheap things were "back in the day", but how they still couldn't afford them. "I didn't have any money, but then again, no one else did either" was their general lament.
And, when I was a kid, a Credit Card was something that was used for emergencies. Period. Mom and Dad paid cash / checks for darn near everything, and I can remember wanting a lot of stuff, but "we just didn't have any money".
Fast forward 30 years. People put Starbucks lattes on their credit cards, and wind up paying 12-20% (or more) interest on a cup of coffee. Then, they wonder how they got into financial trouble.
Moore's law only compounds this vicious circle by accelerating the "you need the latest and greatest" marketing cycle.
There are a lot of reasons, and that's why I specified my theory that Moore's Law played, "at least a small role."
I see a good number of folks in the Millenial age range lining up for the latest iPad, smart phone, Wiis, X-boxes, etc. They pay well above MSRP just to have the latest, and within a year (often less), are standing in line again.
While a small portion of these folks may actually need to stay on the cutting edge to remain competitive in their respective lines of work, I suspect most of them do so for some type of weird generational status thing or simply for entertainment, and in doing so, invest in things that are certain to rapidly lose value.