Shrinking consumption (ie economic deflation, a decrease in GDP) would absolutely destroy the USA. That's not a moral statement. I personally absolutely aim to reduce my consumption. But we live in a financialized debt based economy. It's about one nuance a way from an actual pyramid scheme except instead of recruiting people what it needs is GDP growth. The whole gig explodes when growth stops. Luckily the US could hypothetically keep growing for a VERY long time where as some other countries (China, Japan) are not going to fare as well (on the time frame of their own demographics curves).