Part of what's so perverse -- yet perversely endearing -- about American consumerism is the way we don't allow luxury to preclude necessity. Just because we don't technically need something doesn't mean we can't convince ourselves that we'll die without it. There's a reason the statistic about more American households having TVs than indoor plumbing has been floating around for decades
It's because we define luxuries as being in the eye of the beholder.
and we hold as self-evident that some of them fall into a category all their own: necessary luxuries.

That may be an oxymoron, not to mention evidence that we may be a nation of morons.