unsold

Will the credit crunch bring a deeper shift in consumer attitudes?

On the train to New York, the anthropologist Grant McCracken sees a luxury ad defaced.

The New York Times reports that the mood on the charity circuit has turned against conspicuous consumption. The piece quotes the director of a market research company,

'Though the recession was always talked about in economic terms, we felt really strongly that, in fact, it was a crisis of culture'.

Meanwhile, Yan Pei-Ming's $100,000 portrait of Bernie Madoff remains unsold.