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Americans can't afford their cars any more and Wall Street is worried

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: Americans can't afford their cars any more and Wall Street is worried

#111

Post by m463 »

NDizzle wrote: post #35

Why more people don't keep their cars long term has always been a mystery to me. Sure, I had plenty of them in my 20s when I was young without a bunch (3) of responsibilities roaming the earth. But currently, counting my oldest kid's (19) car, we have 4. I don't worry about any of them. 2008 Land Cruiser and RAV4, 175k on one, 185k on the other. Both bought used. 2013 Sienna, bought new (with a huge discount) - 161k.…

As someone who has never bought a new car, I don't understand why people buy new cars.

If you want a new car, many 3-year-old lease returns are so clean they often provide an indistinguishable experience.

and EVs have even bigger discounts.

Re: Americans can't afford their cars any more and Wall Street is worried

#112

Post by JumpCrisscross »

decimalenough wrote: post #107
serf wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Soon you’ll want Americans to know how good healthcare is in other countries there is a difference between 'good healthcare' and 'available healthcare'. the US has some of the highest quality healthcare in the world to those that it is made available to. the worlds' most rich and famous come to the US for treatment -- and the poorest in the US are among the most plentiful medical tourists to Malaysia and Thailand. I…

> How many hundreds of NHS horror-stories are produced a year? Less than the millions of horror stories produced by the lack of anything like the NHS in the US. That number is not just hyperbole. There are on the order of a million homeless people on the US, and 50-70% of them cite medical debt as a major reason why. This is literally unimaginable in any European country.

> This is literally unimaginable in any European country

America (19.5/10k, of which 12 unsheltered) has fewer homeless per capita than, in increasing order of homelessness, Czechia (22), Austria (22), Sweden (26), Serbia (29), Canada (29), Germany (31), Latvia (35), Greece (37), Luxembourg (38), France (49, of which 4.5 unsheltered) and the UK (56, of which 0.9 unsheltered) [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_ho...

Re: Americans can't afford their cars any more and Wall Street is worried

#113

Post by decimalenough »

kristopolous wrote: post #105
potato3732842 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It couldn't compete. Those cars were shit, just like the Chevettes they were competing against. It was all shit. All of it. The imports were typically slightly more expensive to boot. They sold well because you could get a Civic or whatever with a nice radio and they had a bunch of them on the lot in automatic and all the other things buyers cared about beyond just A to B because for the Japanese automakers shit was…

That's not the point. It was that the market hypothesis of supply simply responding to demand doesn't actually hold. People sell things based on their perception of future consumer sentiments, calculated margins, defensible moats, lots of things. If someone wanted a compact sedan but the only thing for sale was SUVs, they aren't going to be like "I refuse! Bus pass for me" no. They will just bite the bullet and purch…

SUVS (and enormous trucks) are popular, but they are not "the only thing for sale". Alternatives do exist, they just not very, you know, popular.

Re: Americans can't afford their cars any more and Wall Street is worried

#114

Post by sifar »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #97
tamimio wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because they are never holding enough money to cover all deposits at once. Yep, that's the reason (not the other one you mentioned), which means banks are creating money without actual assets backing it up. It's fake numbers basically created out of thin air, but that's not an issue as long as it will make money, real money, from the interest. The concept of modern banks when it was created was that this money is t…

> which means banks are creating money without actual assets backing it up It means they're creating money. That money is backed by actual assets; that is, for example, what's going on when someone forecloses on your house. > I was talking about bank loans to the account owners that they take to purchase/invest/etc., with added interest. How does this work with the comment "The loan is a fake number that gets transfe…

I think what they mean to imply is that banks create new money out of thin air and the actual value of the assets would be lower if these new loans were curtailed.

Re: Americans can't afford their cars any more and Wall Street is worried

#115

Post by decimalenough »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #112
decimalenough wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How many hundreds of NHS horror-stories are produced a year? Less than the millions of horror stories produced by the lack of anything like the NHS in the US. That number is not just hyperbole. There are on the order of a million homeless people on the US, and 50-70% of them cite medical debt as a major reason why. This is literally unimaginable in any European country.

> This is literally unimaginable in any European country America (19.5/10k, of which 12 unsheltered) has fewer homeless per capita than, in increasing order of homelessness, Czechia (22), Austria (22), Sweden (26), Serbia (29), Canada (29), Germany (31), Latvia (35), Greece (37), Luxembourg (38), France (49, of which 4.5 unsheltered) and the UK (56, of which 0.9 unsheltered) [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lis…

Your source itself says the numbers are not directly comparable because of different measures of homelessness, and the US is widely reckoned to undercount: https://www.opportunitynowsv.org/blog/invisible-people-regio...

Nevertheless, medical debt is a significant driver of homelessness in the US, while it is not one in the EU.

Re: Americans can't afford their cars any more and Wall Street is worried

#116

Post by taneq »

potato3732842 wrote: post #82
danans wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they sold well in the US, they would bring in more of them. But they don't. The auto industry would rather use its limited assembly line capacity for the highest margin products, which are large luxury internal combustion vehicles. We have long been in the era of lean manufacturing, where assets like factories are hyper-optimized for returns to capital, not for making products to serve all needs or desires. Why…

The Toyota fanboy mob will be along shortly to downvote you for saying bad things about our lord and savior lean manufacturing. (joking, but not as much as I want to be)

People talking about lean manufacturing never seem to mention the outsourced risk involved. That ‘wasted’ inventory that you have laying around is actually insurance against supply chain shocks. And outsourcing manufacturing of critical components creates uncontrolled existential risks for your business.

Re: Americans can't afford their cars any more and Wall Street is worried

#118

Post by bombcar »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #46
bombcar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe in silly-con valley. Around most places the land goes up very slowly, but the house’s depreciation is reduced by steady repairs.

I can envision a future (maybe even the present in some areas) where increasing prices of skilled labor and/or materials results in a structure’s price increasing even though it is aging.

We have something somewhat like that where structure prices ARE increasing for a number of reasons - including the cost to build a new one.

Re: Americans can't afford their cars any more and Wall Street is worried

#119

Post by benterix »

tharkun__ wrote: post #100
Esophagus4 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car salesmen also want to get you to focus on monthly payment instead of price. It’s easy to manipulate the payment by adjusting the loan term without actually taking anything off the price. And then the finance manager can further manipulate the payment by upselling you additional products and saying it’s only an additional $7 per month instead of saying nitrogen in your tires will cost $336.

Agreed. I usually have to remind the salesperson to stop talking to me in monthly payment terms. I always tell them to talk to me about final price including all interest. It's a bit of an uphill battle, where you have to tell them over and over. They're just so used to trying to sell the monthly payment. It's really no wonder that people that don't understand interest (many if not most) will fall for this. And if yo…

Temp beaters are not that bad, if you choose them wisely (like a boring 3-year old Toyota). Nothing fancy, no surprises, years ahead with just basic service. And a small crash will only break your car, not your heart.

Re: Americans can't afford their cars any more and Wall Street is worried

#120

Post by cudgy »

smileysteve wrote: post #32
toomuchtodo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it’s profitable even after losses, from some combination of origination fees and yield. (at least until the credit cycle turns)

And repossession is relatively easy.

But reselling them won’t be
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