This is actually becoming well understood through many studies over the years in mature economies.

Happiness and life satisfaction rise steeply as one moves from subsistence-level poverty to a modest level of economic security and then levels off.

After that it’s starts to manifest in social pathologies.

During the last 50 years the US has doubled it’s per capita consumption. During the same time, obesity and a host of other mental disorders have skyrocketed.

So you start to get a correlation with economic growth, beyond a certain point, and epidemics of different illnesses in a society.

Now, a culture is an outgrowth of a political/economic system and patterns of behavior are encouraged to support that system.

Yes, the housing bubble was a similar dynamic – which if you pay attention, was in multiple countries.

We seem to confuse powerful cultural stressors for personal and social benefits. Among those stressors is a constant culturally-induced striving for perennially unsatisfiable desires that often conflict with basic bio-social needs – which manifests in all these increasing epidemics.

But, it is good for the economy in the short term.