What would happen if consumers decided to simplify their lives and spend less on material goods and services This (1)_____ is taking on" a certain urgency as rates of economic growth continue to decelerate throughout the industrialized world, and (2)_____ millions of consumers appear to be (3)_____ for more frugal lifestyle. The Stanford Research Institute, which has done some of the most extensive work on the frugality phenomenon, (4)_____ that nearly five million American adults number" (5)_____ to and act on some but not all" of its basic tenets. The frugality phenomenon first achieved prominence as a middle-class (6)_____ of high consumption lifestyle in the industrial world during the 50"s and 60"s. In the Silent Revolution, Ronald Inglehart of the University of Michingan"s Institute of Social Research examined this (7)_____ in the United States and 10 Western European nations. He concluded that a change has taken place "from an (8)_____ emphasis on material well-being and physical security (9)_____ greater emphasis on the quality of life", that is, "a (10)_____ from materialism to postmaterialism". Inglehart calls the 60s the "fat year". Among their more visible trappings were the ragged blue jeans favored by the affluent young. Most of them (11)_____ from materialism; however, this was (12)_____ Comfortably fixed Americans were going (13)_____, (14)_____ making things last longer, sharing things with others, learning to do things for themselves and so on. But (15)_____ economically significant, it was hardly (16)_____ in a US Gross National Product climbing vigorously toward the $2 thousand billion mark (17)_____, as the frugality phenomenon matured—growing out of the soaring 80s and into the somber 90s—it seemed to undergo a (18)_____ transformation. American consumers continued to lose (19)_____ in materialism and were being joined by new converts who were (20)_____ frugality because of the darkening economic skies they saw ahead.

A. though
B. as
C. much as
D. ever since