• came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          20·
          23 days ago

          as a larger and larger portion of americans are discovering, without a whole shitload of well paid idiots out there, buying new cars every 3-5 years, the used market contracts significantly.

          and now that it’s obvious EVs are the future for individual transport, rational people started hanging on longer than average to their existing combustion car to wait for the used/affordable EV market to materialize.

          the used car market is now so squeezed, used car prices can be decoupled from reality just because people still need a car in this car dependent shithole.

          add in the broader unstable economic outlook and nobody wants to make any large purchases unless they absolutely half to, so all the dealerships can do to juice sales is start issuing insane loans with horrible terms to the biggest broke idiots they can find to try and move the needle until the next quarter, when they assume the slump will be over.

          its a perfect storm of how capitalism turns anything into a highly profitable* disaster (* assuming the feds come in and underwrite the insane risk).

      • whogivesashit@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
        10·
        23 days ago

        Yeah buying used is only viable if you can actually do all of the maintenance required. Not really an option for most people so car ownership just becomes another place to fall into debt forever.

  • segfault11 [she/her, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    84·
    23 days ago

    teenager goes into debt because they were pressured to go to college their entire life: play stupid games, win stupid prizes smuglord very-intelligent

    fellow hog goes into debt wasting money on a Ford F-420: robbery! ooooooooooooooh

  • unmagical@lemmy.ml
    39·
    23 days ago

    That is over 7 times my car payment.

    With that kinda car payment I could pay down in 3 months.

    You could buy a shitty beater one month, a different one the next month, then alternate between them while covering repairs for the other for basically the same payment each month.

  • WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    34·
    23 days ago

    If not this, what exactly do they think financing is?

    This is the entire fucking basis of their entire worldview. Actuarial data regarding ROIs and interest is the entire shtick. To them there should be nothing else that is important, nothing else should be considered sacred or important besides the APR generating a profit. Otherwise that’s a compulsion to care about something and you would have to be like a jedi resisting the urge to be seduced by the dark side. Max Steiner Stirner would spit on your grave if you thought that this is anything but the most holy of civil interactions.

    • InappropriateEmote [comrade/them, undecided]@hexbear.netEnglish
      29·
      23 days ago

      I’m not sure this answer is universal, but based on the one I’m unfortunately related to and have to talk to from time to time, libertarians would say that regulation is preventing other truck manufacturers from entering and competing in the market. If the market were “truly” free, then a competitor could come along and do better by selling their vehicles at a lower interest rate, taking all the business away from the interest-rate-abusing company. If you try to explain that this problem is not due to regulation but due to a lack of it, or how trusts happen and how monopolies work, they will fall back on the same set of naive circular reasoning. It doesn’t have to make sense or reflect reality, it just has to vaguely sound plausible and fit with what they want to be true.

      • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
        23·
        23 days ago

        That’s such obvious nonsense though lol he doesn’t have to buy this truck with the financing, there are other options already! It exists for market reasons.

      • segfault11 [she/her, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        14·
        23 days ago

        the amount of mental gymnastics and extrapolating they go through to explain something backwards from the conclusion “regulation is universally bad” is astounding. i knew a guy who said that seatbelt regulations actively make cars less safe. when i asked him to explain, he said that it prevents car manufacturers from inventing new, potentially more effective safety mechanisms that might get in the way of seatbelts. when i asked him if he knew of any better alternatives to seatbelts that were being hindered by seatbelt regulations, he basically said “idk, but i have faith that the free market will come up with something.”

  • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    19·
    23 days ago

    Nothing grinds my gears more than the willful stupidity of libertarians. They claim to be the true acolytes of capitalism but they can never prove it by dazzling us with their huge wealths and power. They’re never some captain of industry it’s some fucking small business owner. Krill. They’re fucking krill waiting to be gobbled up by the bigger fish. Look at this fuckwit getting fucked by the market, by usury, a concept as older than the Iron Age. This fucking brain chump probably thinks he’s a better businessman than Bill Gates because he knows Bill Gates only got rich through evil “fake capitalism.” In the real world if this guy were to ever become a vague challenge to Gates’ wealth the vast systems corrupted by capital: state, banking, telecom, etc, would conspire to stomp this ant deep into the dirt. This impotent caterwauling is all they’re good for.