Indians, world's most confident consumers

A nation of Alex Keaton's, I love it.

Never mind what their mothers think. Young Indians aren't clotheshorses and gizmo freaks like their global counterparts -- only a quarter of them spend their spare cash on clothes and new technology.

Instead, they're more likely to dabble in the stock market, pay off credit card bills or invest in a retirement fund. And more often than not, any money left over, after covering essential living expenses, is likely to be stashed away in a savings account. It's liquid, it's safe and it's D-U-L-L.

Go through the latest ACNielsen Consumer Confidence and Opinions Survey and you can't help thinking that Indian consumers are a remarkably boring lot -- they save money, worry about the economy, are interminably cheerful about their careers and remarkably sanguine about the prospect of crime or war. It's almost enough to make you wish they were at least half as bad as their moms fear.