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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

#231

Post by rsynnott »

rsynnott wrote: post #228
kulahan wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

(Though thinking about it further, probably _should_ be afraid of railbuses, which are a bus chassis on rails; kind of amazing they were ever allowed really. Bizarrely, some were actually still in use in the UK til 2021 or so. Even more shockingly, there don't seem to have been many/any documented fatal incidents; one of the UK railbuses was destroyed more or less completely in a crash, but it was empty at the time.)

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

#232

Post by hollerith »

dijit wrote: post #46
rayiner wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an extremely privileged viewpoint. Even in Tokyo, people in the bottom half of the income distribution do not live close enough to popular transit lines to be as mobile as someone with a beater car in Dallas. They spend a lot more time commuting (and they can’t “just do some work on the train” because they have real jobs). Even in Tokyo, their commutes are crowded, they’re subject to the weather. Being tied t…

It's only privileged because I'm living in a city that has actively prioritised other modes of transport. I invite you to compare Orlando and Malmo. If you have the opportunity to visit both, I would recommend it. They have the same population size (actually, Malmo has more people in it, but, close enough) yet in one it's impossible to get across the street without a car, even to go to the grocery store, and the othe…

If I need to work to earn a living and working remotely in Europe for an American company were not an option (for some strange reason) I'd rather live in Orlando.

I admit that Europe tends to be a nicer place to live for those who have enough savings that they do not need to work and for those too sick to work.

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

#233

Post by dijit »

hollerith wrote: post #232
dijit wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only privileged because I'm living in a city that has actively prioritised other modes of transport. I invite you to compare Orlando and Malmo. If you have the opportunity to visit both, I would recommend it. They have the same population size (actually, Malmo has more people in it, but, close enough) yet in one it's impossible to get across the street without a car, even to go to the grocery store, and the othe…

If I need to work to earn a living and working remotely in Europe for an American company were not an option (for some strange reason) I'd rather live in Orlando. I admit that Europe tends to be a nicer place to live for those who have enough savings that they do not need to work and for those too sick to work.

I don't speak Swedish and I'm perfectly fine living and working here. The level of English speaking in Malmö often exceeds the ability to speak English in places in the UK. Ironically.

Why would you rather live in Orlando?

I presume you've been to both places.

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

#234

Post by hollerith »

dijit wrote: post #233
hollerith wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I need to work to earn a living and working remotely in Europe for an American company were not an option (for some strange reason) I'd rather live in Orlando. I admit that Europe tends to be a nicer place to live for those who have enough savings that they do not need to work and for those too sick to work.

I don't speak Swedish and I'm perfectly fine living and working here. The level of English speaking in Malmö often exceeds the ability to speak English in places in the UK. Ironically. Why would you rather live in Orlando? I presume you've been to both places.

>I don't speak Swedish and I'm perfectly fine living and working here. The level of English speaking in Malmö often exceeds the ability to speak English in places in the UK.

That is interesting. I should explain that I edited out the part of my comment about language (because it is not relevant to my point).

I haven't been to Malmo, but I doubt that visiting a place for a short time tells a person much about what it is like to live and work there. I've read hundreds of comments from people who have lived and worked in both the US and Europe. I believe that life in Europe tends to be more orderly and pleasant than life in the US. A good example of "more orderly" is that deaths from automobile accidents are several times higher in the US than they are in most places in Europe -- and not just because Americans spend more time in cars: in the US, deaths per mile of travel in automobiles are several times higher.

>Why would you rather live in Orlando?

Because income is a massive factor in quality of life, and for any level of income, it is significantly easier to earn that level of income in the US than in Europe provided that the person in question is healthy enough to hold a job.

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

#235

Post by micromacrofoot »

olyjohn wrote: post #76
micromacrofoot wrote: post #43

Also worth noting the average new car is now $50k and the average new car loan is $40k+ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/10/17/50000-new... Starting to find out the risks of a car-centric society in a slow-burn economic crisis.

Yeah the average is high, that means there are cars cheaper than that. People are spending big because they either are doing no researchand getting suckered, or they are buying nicer cars for vanity reasons.

The average has gone up because we have fewer cheap cars than ever

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

#236

Post by micromacrofoot »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #98
micromacrofoot wrote: post #43

Also worth noting the average new car is now $50k and the average new car loan is $40k+ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/10/17/50000-new... Starting to find out the risks of a car-centric society in a slow-burn economic crisis.

Average (presumably) mean car price is not useful when discussing affordability. There are very reliable, brand new vehicles for $30k. The extra amount is luxury.

of course it is useful, there are reliable cars for $30k but most people are buying more expensive cars thus pulling the average up

average car loan amount and loan duration are also up

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

#237

Post by hollerith »

dijit wrote: post #233
hollerith wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I need to work to earn a living and working remotely in Europe for an American company were not an option (for some strange reason) I'd rather live in Orlando. I admit that Europe tends to be a nicer place to live for those who have enough savings that they do not need to work and for those too sick to work.

I don't speak Swedish and I'm perfectly fine living and working here. The level of English speaking in Malmö often exceeds the ability to speak English in places in the UK. Ironically. Why would you rather live in Orlando? I presume you've been to both places.

I'm curious whether you work remotely for a non-European organization or are self-employed at the kind of job that can be done anywhere with decent internet connectivity.

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

#238

Post by dijit »

hollerith wrote: post #237
dijit wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't speak Swedish and I'm perfectly fine living and working here. The level of English speaking in Malmö often exceeds the ability to speak English in places in the UK. Ironically. Why would you rather live in Orlando? I presume you've been to both places.

I'm curious whether you work remotely for a non-European organization or are self-employed at the kind of job that can be done anywhere with decent internet connectivity.

I used to work here: https://www.massive.se - Owned by Ubisoft, kinda international, 800 or so employees in Malmö

Then I worked here: https://www.sharkmob.com - Now owned by Tencent, not very international though, not really spidered into Tencent. About 350~ employees in Malmö.

After that I worked here: https://www.rennsport.gg - German company, where it was a remote company but I build an onsite office or 20 persons in Malmö. That was the largest office in the company.

Now I work for a Swedish company.

There's also a bunch of companies like ESS (European Spallation Source)[0] in Lund, Verisure and Axis communications.

[0]: https://ess.eu

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

#239

Post by eecc »

spwa4 wrote: post #223
eecc wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I still don’t understand the point of all this exercise. In the long run, without a fairer redistribution of wealth within US society (which isn’t going to happen with these polices and the politicians pushing them) forcing re-shoring will still result in higher prices overall: expensive Made in USA products, and expensive imports due to a weak dollar. So why?

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

#240

Post by kulahan »

watwut wrote: post #224
kulahan wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It just isnt a thing, really.

TIL old people don't exist and the problems every bus on the planet faces are actually just fake
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