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US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans

theguardian.com

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Re: US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans

#221

Post by ponector »

kulahan wrote: post #80
jeffbee wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine having a credit score of 300 and a $542/mo loan payment on a used car. Cursed. Americans need buses more than ever.

Does anyone else hate busses, and the only response you ever get after mentioning this is "NUH UH BUSSES CAN BE GREAT"? A bus will pretty much always be inferior to a car. Mathematically impossible to run on time. It never gets you where you want to go, just kinda close usually. If one doesn't show up, there is no real feedback without an extensive background metadata system. Never as clean as your own car (unless yo…

>>It never gets you where you want to go.

As well as the car. Unless you destination is a parking lot.

Re: US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans

#222

Post by kulahan »

watwut wrote: post #200
kulahan wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I have never seen a bus staying at stop for 10 min for random reason. You are making up inconveniences that dont exist.

If you’ve never seen it, it just doesn’t exist. My mistake.

Re: US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans

#223

Post by spwa4 »

eecc wrote: post #209
ponector wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> In reality, the dollar's true value will plummet But it's good. There is no way to bring back manufacturing jobs to the US while dollar is strong. Also high inflation may make housing more affordable.

If manufacturing is to return to the USA, it will be as fully automated as technically possible. So forget about jobs, there won't remotely be as many as needed to "reboot the working class"

The effect of weakening the dollar is not to return manufacturing jobs to the US while allowing the same dollars to buy the same products. It's to make imported goods more expensive so domestically produced ones win out in the marketplace, both in and outside of the US. To make you switch because your favorite products become too expensive.

It's to make you chose Californian wine over French one, so to speak. Whether you are in the US or elsewhere.

If technological advancement is going to kill the working class, this might slightly accelerate that development but it does not change it one way or the other.

Re: US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans

#224

Post by watwut »

kulahan wrote: post #222
watwut wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never seen a bus staying at stop for 10 min for random reason. You are making up inconveniences that dont exist.

If you’ve never seen it, it just doesn’t exist. My mistake.

It just isnt a thing, really.

Re: US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans

#225

Post by [deleted] »

supertrope wrote: post #179
Retric wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t take that much to for huge numbers of people to be able to transfer to car free existence. Zoning laws inside cities do a amazing amount to force cars on millions of Americans. Car free access to existing transit hubs like metro stations is often horrible and not particularly expensive to improve.

Cities could create bus and bike lanes literally overnight. Load up a truck with concrete parking curbs and cones and drop them. No one is going to bike until the infrastructure makes it safe and convenient. Like safe enough to let a kid or 65 year old woman bike. We just choose to continue subsidizing a triangle of car dependency. The government finances toll-free roads, mandates parking minimums, and enforces restr…

[deleted]

Re: US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans

#226

Post by rsynnott »

watwut wrote: post #200
kulahan wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I have never seen a bus staying at stop for 10 min for random reason. You are making up inconveniences that dont exist.

Dublin is currently making changes to traffic flow to prioritise buses, with the result that some buses now go far faster than they used to. But because everything is in flux, and Dublin Bus hates updating timetables at the best of times, it is now somewhat common for a too-fast bus to stop for a few minutes to get back on schedule (complete with recorded message to that effect). It'll pass, but it is, for now, a thing.

(They've tweaked it now, but for a few months the bus I usually use to get from home to the city centre did this on about 30% of journeys.)

Re: US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans

#227

Post by rsynnott »

kulahan wrote: post #162
hamdingers wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A bus will pretty much always be inferior to a car. I never have to clean a bus, or put gas in it, or change its oil. I don't even have to drive it. I don't have to dedicate a big portion of my property to storing it, just to pay to park it somewhere else when I go out. I'll never get a ticket for leaving it in the wrong place, and I'll never have to go to court because I used it wrong. I don't have to worry about…

[flagged]

Just looking at Google Maps, if I wanted to get to the city centre right now:

- Car: 22 minutes (and, er, park... somewhere? Who knows)

- Walk: 42 minutes

- Bike: 14 minutes

- Bus: 17 minutes (including 3 minutes walk)

- Train: 20 minutes (including 10 minutes walk)

Buses work in some places.

(Granted, this is traffic-dependent and the train would def beat it at rush hour in my particular case, particularly as Google Maps' time for walking is very conservative.)

I could fairly handily afford a car, but for my lifestyle, where I like, there just doesn't seem to be any real _point_.

Re: US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans

#228

Post by rsynnott »

kulahan wrote: post #80
jeffbee wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine having a credit score of 300 and a $542/mo loan payment on a used car. Cursed. Americans need buses more than ever.

Does anyone else hate busses, and the only response you ever get after mentioning this is "NUH UH BUSSES CAN BE GREAT"? A bus will pretty much always be inferior to a car. Mathematically impossible to run on time. It never gets you where you want to go, just kinda close usually. If one doesn't show up, there is no real feedback without an extensive background metadata system. Never as clean as your own car (unless yo…

Always amused by HN on buses. It seems that the median HN is basically okay with trains, but is convinced that if they ever set foot on a bus they will immediately be stabbed by 47 drug addicts, and then their soul consigned to Bus Hell. It's kind of comically hyperbolic.

I wonder where the dividing line is. Are HNs afraid of trams? Very Light Rail systems? Trambuses? Trolleybuses? BRTs? Railbuses? Someone should do a survey.

Re: US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans

#229

Post by Slava_Propanei »

watwut wrote: post #197
epistasis wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your explanation makes no sense. First, nobody thought that Trump would actually go through with the tariffs because it's an insane plan and that wiser people in the administration would restrain Trump. So the dollar started to devalue when people realized that "holy shit these tariffs might actually happen." The tariffs are way way bigger than anybody expected. The entire goal of the tariffs were to weaken the dolla…

> would actually go through with the tariffs because it's an insane plan and that wiser people in the administration would restrain Trump. What is insane is to assume republicans picked by Trump will restrain Trump. The adults in the room theory was disproven long before that election. Trump 1.0 had tarriffs. Trump talked abput tarrifs. People in fact assumed Trump will do tarriffs, they just slightly underestimated…

[dead]

Re: US car repossessions surge as more Americans default on auto loans

#230

Post by Slava_Propanei »

jrs235 wrote: post #150
dinobones wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On paper, nothing will happen. The wealthy in America will continue to get wealthier. Real estate and stocks will soar in value. In reality, the dollar's true value will plummet. The FED is starting to lower interest rates again. We are likely going to undergo brutal inflation. Crashing the economy is obviously very politically unpopular. The left/right will do whatever they can to keep this charade up, even if it me…

>Crashing the economy is obviously very politically unpopular. But not something one worries or cares about if one doesn't worry about having to be elected and/or is willing to use the military to suppress dissent... So tanking the economy is a way to keep and maintain power...

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