"Something tells me within the next 5 years Americans will have forgotten about the whole "maybe spending way more money than I make is a bad idea" and things will go back to the way they were."

There is historical precedent. While this is no Great Depression and I remain unconvinced it will become one, those who were bitten by the Great Depression were frugal not just for the rest of their life, but their children were relatively frugal too.

People can learn, and this is definitely one thing they can learn. On the one hand, this "crisis" (I am increasingly unconvinced this is a "crisis" and not just a "big recession") isn't quite as large, but on the other hand, it is increasingly easy to live a very good life on relatively small amounts of money.