James A. Roberts was watching an ABC News Nightline episode on basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal recently when he heard about the size of the retired player’s Florida home: 70,000 square feet.
Even for a man who spends his time studying consumer behavior as a marketing professor at Baylor University, Roberts was stunned.
His latest book, “Shiny Objects: Why We Spend Money We Don’t Have in Search of Happiness We Can’t Buy,” tells the story of the American Dream gone awry by profligate materialism. The size of O’Neal’s home offered further proof.
To Roberts’ mind, what began as “Keeping up with the Joneses” has morphed into “Keeping up with the Gateses” (or, perhaps, the O’Neals).