Youth don’t have much money, but that doesn’t keep them from spending big bucks on high-dollar luxury goods. According to a report by American Express Business Insights, millennials (youth born between 1980 and 2000) increased their luxury-fashion spending by 33 percent in 2011 since the previous year and increased their spending on jewelry by 27 percent. They’re also far more likely to run out and buy the newest technological gizmos than their parents or grandparents were. To make such extravagant purchases, many youth are willing to cut back in other areas (i.e., eating more cheaply or driving an older car for a year or two longer). “When we look at the luxury market, millennials are the growth engine going forward,” says Jason Dorsey, the chief strategy officer for The Center for Generational Kinetics. Many youth, Dorsey suspects, may be influenced in part by social networking: For many, luxury goods equal outward success, and with new purchases often tabulated by sites such as Facebook, the latest-and-greatest stuff showing up in a posted picture tells the world either “I’ve made it, or I want to tell you I’ve made it.” (The Fiscal Times)