That is certainly true of some males. But there is another side of the story as well - aggressive marketing aimed at people who for one reason or another cannot make a fully rational decision about their budgets and spending, like minors or people who are so under-educated that cannot grasp the basics of resource management. My wife works in social services and tells me that one of the biggest problems their clients face is stress caused by their apparent inability to control their resources and wasting vast sums of money on grossly overpriced goods and services, such as check cashing services, cable television, fast food etc.
Teenage clothing & gadgets (such as cell phone and "ringers") is another example - the grossly overpriced stuff (and that is an understatement) is marketed as a sign of "coolness" and generates enormous peer pressure to conform. The marketers know darn well that teens are less likely to resist that pressure and pressure their parents to buy the shit. So from the parents' point of view, it is a choice of overspending or living in a constant state of war with their teenage kids. The situation is far worse for single parents (usually women) who often desperately try to create a "normal" life for their kids, yet their financial situation is often more difficult than that of two-adult households.
All that is yet another example of the colonization of social life in the US by commercial interests. Peoples with vibrant social life are fully capable of neutralizing propaganda aimed at them, but those whose social life is on a life support system or altogether dead - cannot resist. If you take commercialism out of the American life, not much will be left and this country will fall apart like a house of sand.
Wojtek