(Bloomberg View) — Young Americans are no longer all that interested in automobiles, the Washington Post's Marc Fisher wrote in a big article over the weekend. The smartphone has replaced the car in their affections; they now connect with friends over social media instead of at the drive-in. And so on.

As somebody who wondered in a column last week whether people in developed countries were perhaps learning that they no longer needed as much stuff as they used to, and whether this might lead to big shifts in the global economy, I read on with great interest. Then I was pulled up short by this:

"This is all actually economics, not preferences," says Sean McAlinden, chief economist at the Center for Automotive Research, a nonprofit group funded by government and industry grants. When the cost of owning a car drops below 10 percent of income, "young people will stop telling pollsters they can do without cars. You say you're not interested in owning something if you can't afford it," he argues.