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

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/10/20/americans-cant-afford-cars-any-more-wall-street-worried/

If only we had invented and built some sort of alternative mode of collective transportation. Maybe it could be in tunnels and ride on metallic rails. It would serve many people and make periodic stops to the same locations instead of the highway clusterf- we have today. Sad that we don't, but a man can dream though. A man can dream though. A man can dream.

148 points · 24 comments · view on lemmy.world

24 Comments

Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world · 35 pts · 308d (3 replies)

People are getting subprime loans for new cars? Madness.

Goodtoknow@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 307d

Yet we can't get subprime loans for housing, groceries or starting a businesses

SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 307d

Some is jacked...jacked to the tits...

sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 307d

Thats been the norm for at least 5 years now.

And, just like with Mortgages 15ish years ago, these subprime car loans got bundled into ABS, Asset Backed Securities, and now they are blowing up, because sensible financial regulation is anathema to American capitalism.

NarrativeBear@lemmy.world · 29 pts · 308d (7 replies)

Seems like a good thing, cars starting to show their "true cost".

Now if only all the other external costs would be accounted for.

Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world · 31 pts · 307d (5 replies)

If cars showed their true cost to society, they'd be far more expensive.

NarrativeBear@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 307d (1 reply)

Absolutely, hopefully these "true costs" can be accounted for, imagine for example the price of gas without government handouts, or the costs of traffic lights, street signs, and roadways.

unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de · 5 pts · 307d

The biggest secondary cost of cars is definitely health. Soo many deaths and healthcare costs from accidents, pollution, lack of transportation access, heatwaves, etc.

HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml · 11 pts · 307d (2 replies)

The "true" cost is and has always been the millions of lives they ended but we as a society don't seem to give a shit.

SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 307d

That's just deaths, no one even counts people maimed for life.

racketlauncher831@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 307d

Let's say, today, within these 24 hours, if more than 50% of the car engines have been started, a specific person will die for sure tomorrow. Can we prevent the person from dying if we know this beforehand? No, because there is always "I'm late for work" or "Why me? Why not him?"

One death is way too many for a civilized society.

eldavi@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 307d

Seems like a good thing, cars starting to show their “true cost”.

it looks like they always have:

Days later, John Waldron, the president of Goldman Sachs, warned that the recent collapses might indicate consumers in the lower end of the economy are suffering, posing a further threat to US lenders.

apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 307d

The first sign was extending car loan lengths to maximize interest return.

favoredponcho@lemmy.zip · 12 pts · 307d (4 replies)
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tlmcleod@lemmy.ml · -1 pts · 307d (3 replies)

Uhh, how much do you think blue collar folk make? A lot of them could pay that off in a year if they have no other obligations, 5 year loan would be no problem. And more to the point, why does this feel like you're denigrating blue collar work by insinuating they get paid shit?

favoredponcho@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 307d (1 reply)
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SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 307d

But they all buy $50,000 trucks, they don't even use them for work.

brainwashed@feddit.org · 1 pts · 307d

If they roll over the debt from 3 other cars, no, even well earning blue collar guys cannot affort yet another 75k truck.

onlooker@lemmy.ml · 10 pts · 307d (1 reply)

Non-paywalled link:

https://archive.is/ahg9K

eldavi@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 307d

you're doing god's work; thank you. ;)

utopiah@lemmy.ml · 10 pts · 307d

some sort of alternative mode of collective transportation.

OK ok but hear me out, going to sound crazy, what if we could like... put a smaller cheap mode of transportation INSIDE the bigger collective one?!

Like... I don't know... a bike on a subway or train car?! 🤯

RiikkaTheIcePrincess@pawb.social · 9 pts · 307d

You're telling me we built all of our cities for cars and it turns out the cars depend on human owners?? [Sarcasm] Damn, if only we'd had any idea at all we could have maybe skipped the cars and built things for humans in the first place!

[Very sarcasm] Oh well, you can't win at all. That's how the saying goes, right?

Garbagio@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 307d (1 reply)
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silicon@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 307d

Do us a favor and at least take a billionaire with you when you go!

crazyminner@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 307d (1 reply)

Wow... Hopefully this trend continues. More people on public transit or biking please, thank you.

Bosht@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 307d

It's an issue in some shit hole states that are red because we don't have the public transport infrastructure, and even if demand rose they'd still push it out. We've had votes on a tram and subway here and they both got put in the dirt.

altphoto@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 293d

How about wheel chairs? https://lemmy.world/post/1433287