Delinquency rates unchanged, more buyers paid cash to dodge interest rates, prime is pristine, subprime (14% of originations) is (always) in trouble.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
About 80% of new vehicles purchased in the US in 2024 were financed with loans or leases, down from 85% in Q1 2022, as higher interest rates have induced a larger share of buyers to pay cash. Due to their convenience, leases have remained popular with people who could easily pay cash.
In terms of used vehicles, about 37% of the purchases were financed, down from 42% in early 2022, as a larger share of buyers paid cash. This financing data is from Experian, based on the credit data it obtains and collects on all consumers.
So, total balance of auto loans and leases for new and used vehicles rose by only 0.6% in Q2 from Q1, and by only 2.8% year-over-year, to $1.63 trillion, according to data from the New York Fed’s Household Debt and Credit Report.
The 2.8% growth rate for the 12-month period was the smallest since Q1 2021 (+2.7%) and the second smallest since 2011, though new and used vehicle retail sales during this period been the highest since before the pandemic.
The two main factors that caused the growth of auto loan balances to be so unusually low were:
- A larger portion of our Drunken Sailors, as we facetiously and lovingly have come to call them, paid cash to dodge the high interest rates;
- Used-vehicle prices have come down hard, and new vehicle prices have started to fall, reducing the amounts to be financed (see here for details and charts of new-vehicle CPI and used-vehicle CPI).
And the auto-debt burden dipped further.
One way to measure the burden of auto-loan debt on households is the comparison to their disposable income, which includes wages, interest, dividends, rental income, farm income, small business income, transfer payments, etc. minus payroll taxes and social insurance payments. It’s what households have left over to pay for their costs of living and service their debts.
Disposable income has risen faster than auto-loan balances. So, the total balance of auto loans and leases dipped to 7.79% of disposable income, the lowest since the free-money Q1 2021, and beyond the free-money era, the lowest since 2015.
Subprime = bad credit, high risk, high profit. Not low income.
Subprime lending plays almost no role in new vehicle financing and is confined to used vehicles, particularly older used vehicles, and largely through subprime-specialized dealer/lender chains. In 2024, the share of subprime lending dropped to 14% of total loan and lease originations.
Subprime auto lending depends on lenders being able to securitize these auto loans into Asset Backed Securities (ABS) and sell them as bonds to pension funds and other institutional investors.
But as yields on Treasury bills rose to levels previously occupied by subprime auto-loan ABS, investors lost some interest, and funding got more difficult. And as the pandemic free-money dried up, delinquencies in the subprime segment jumped from multi-year lows.
During the free-money era, the specialized subprime dealer/lenders loosened their credit standards and got very aggressive and very greedy with huge profit margins and interest-rate spreads. At the same time, used-vehicle prices exploded. And the risks piled up. And when used-vehicle prices began to tank and interest rates began to jump, those risks came home to roost.
In 2023, several PE-firm-owned subprime-specialized dealer-chains filed for bankruptcy, and even the large publicly traded subprime dealer/lender Car-Mart disclosed massive problems in December, after investors got leery of buying the subprime auto-loan ABS.
Subprime 60-plus day delinquency rate in June dipped a hair to 5.62% (from 5.64% in May), but was up 61 basis points from June last year, according to Fitch data, which tracks subprime ABS. The rate, which is very seasonal, had hit a record in February of 6.39%.
But prime loans are rock-solid with minuscule delinquency rates below 0.3% for the past three months (blue).
The “Transition into delinquency” rate by the New York Fed is a special metric that measures the balances that transitioned into delinquency over the past 12 months. It’s a measure of a flow over a 12-month period (not of a level such as delinquency rate by Fitch above at month-end).
The 30-plus-day “transition into delinquency” rate in Q2, at 7.95%, was essentially unchanged from Q1. During the Good Times before the pandemic, the rate was between 7.2% and 7.5%.
The 90-plus-day “transition into delinquency” rate, at 4.4% in Q2, was also essentially unchanged from Q1. In both metrics (30-days and 90 days), it looks like the rise from the ultra-low levels of the free-money era has topped out:
In case you missed the earlier parts of household debt and credit, from Wednesday and Tuesday:
Here Come the HELOCs: Mortgages, the Burden of Mortgage Debt, Delinquencies, and Foreclosures in Q2
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Few can survive without a car in this country.
My very first first!…and at prime time!
I’m so happy……will read article tomorrow, promise!
RTGDMFAYSB……….JK…………ILU
IDLU…..NK
Yeah, my city isn’t walkable or bike able hardly at all. Some high school kid was complaining on Reddit that it took him an hour to take 2 buses for just going 1 mile to his house.
I saw the poor souls out in the recent tropical storm with no cover waiting on their bus. Not fun. 1st world probs tho right.
That kid must be taking two short busses then. A one mile walk is not far at all. If someone waits takes 2 buses to go 1 mile and that takes one hour total, that’s definitely short bus status right there. Definitely first world problems, it’s called a raincoat with a hood. Kids wait outside for the bus in temperatures that are zero degrees Fahrenheit in places like the upper midwest, in the complete dark, at 6 am, to take the bus, because the sun doesn’t start coming up until much later in the winter. Somewhere that gets tropical storms is definitely not cold. If kids can handle zero degrees then I think those tropical places the people can handle getting some rain gear. It’s reddit though, a sob fest for the weak and coddled. Let them spend a day with cupcake in his storage unit and try some Cuervo to put some hair on the chest of those young ones. These are probably the kind of kids that wait until their 21st birthday to try a beer.
Or ride a bike. You can easily go a mile in 5 minutes. Of course the kids should stay off busy highways travelled by those guys sippin’ on some Cuervo as they tool along wondering what that funny bump in the road was.
Gotta be careful. I almost got a DUI on a bike when I was in high school. It was just after Thanksgiving. I told the officer I had a lot of bad turkey. It was actually a bottle of Wild Turkey. Good thinking about using a bike though.
its different and odd now…we were on our bikes en masse. 6 yr old next door not even a tricycle…indoor all the time playing who knows what…?? out for 30 min w dad to throw a ball then right back in….not active or Interactive figuring things out w other kids…and kids together will do that……called parallel /cooperative play/ part of socialization…..now the device in hands is playtime. very sad.
Probably no safe way to walk or bike the 1 mile. Probably choke full of highly congested high speed road traffic that you can find all over big and small cities.
You can see where you want to go but takes forever to get there due to highway or major interchange in the way.
And hoisting a barbell he points to the sky, saying…
The sun’s not yellow…it’s chicken!
“high school kid was complaining on Reddit that it took him an hour to take 2 buses for just going 1 mile to his house.”
Geez, just walk at that point. At my old city apartment I used to walk a mile (each way) just to get to & from the bus stop.
With public transit, avoiding connections is the key. If you can make the trip with a one-seat ride it’s usually not too bad.
…there’s always the possibility that this young person was measuring the hour with New York minutes…
may we all find a better day.
Lots of choices for personal vehicles aren’t cars. Look at other parts of the world where motor scooters are the dominant vehicles in city centers.
Scooters are tacitly sneered at by the car-driving masses. Only a full-sized, full-fledged automobile will do. You don’t see many Smart micro-cars outcompeting the massive SUVs out there.
No sign of a recession here. Move along, kiddos!
With data still looking this decent, I really fail to see how we can justify a rate cut in Sept as MSM/WS are now betting the farm on. Drunken sailors still spending, all the delinquencies are mostly nothing burger especially in Prime market.
MW: Mexico’s central bank cuts interest rates despite rise in inflation, shocking analysts
The 12-month headline inflation has been rising yoy. But core inflation is still declining.
Also, did you check their inflation rate and interest rate? Core CPI declined to 4.05%. And the Bank of Mexico cut to… wait for it …. 10.75%’
The Bank of Mexico had front-run the Fed’s rate hikes by a year, and it had hiked a lot in big increments from 4% to 11.25%. They did that to protect the peso, and in worked. So it’s time to cut a little.
And people here are complaining about 5% interest. Sky is falling.
They aren’t betting their farm on it. They are betting someone else’s farm on it. That’s the way high finance works. Why play with and gamble with your own money when you can play with and gamble with someone else’s money. Embezzlement is for honest criminals who have to be sneaky. Why not do it the prestigious way by engaging in the construction of card houses. Own the media and tell people what to think. It’s probably more powerful than owning court judges. Own the banks and capital funds that tell the FED what to do. It’s better than owning the president. Own the lobbyists that write policy and budgets. It’s better than owning congressmen. Own the state diplomats and generals. It’s better than owning the weapons and the manufacturers.
I own a bottle of Cuervo and rent a storage unit. It’s better than a bottle of Vodka and a refrigerator box.
Nothing is much better than owning the weapons manufacturers, as long as your lobbyists are ex-military or in VERY good standing in DC…Uncle was BOTH….I know first hand….since childhood…..relatives still hanging out there and other places keeping us safe.
Also have relatives starving and/or taking dope in rust belt…..but ALL are good Christians…..one even has (extra) money making website….used to take lots of trips to Africa doing missionary stuff….not any more…the free safaris are over.
It all seems silly to me as well, little baby cuts from a monstrous 5+% wow!!. From a historic perspective this is all trivial. Even the fat lady is uninspired.
So…everybody can go back to work, the recession that never was has been canceled. Remember, it’s not what your county can do for you, it’s what your country can do to you.
Just why do so many people in America want to continue to live far beyond their financial means?
Because it’s more fun?
But not many people are, as you can tell from the charts.
You mean buying a Hellcat with no job during Covid was a bad idea?
Nobody buys base models anymore.
All people want since COVID are “Special Sport Edition”, “Black Edition”, “Racing Edition”, special paints, fancier wheels, etc. even now that base models are available on lots.
These buyers are signing their future away.
It’s a bad idea even without the unemployment or covid LOL all that horsepower just goes to pushing around 4500lbs of car.
The SUVs with the hellcat engine are even worse. Literally single digit MPG even on the highway.
The Dodge SUV with the (700+hp) Hellcat engine “started” at $100K+ so the typical buywe was not shopping for “best MPG”.
I know people who have absolutely no idea how to determine if something is within their means or not. If a bank says they can afford the monthly payments they’ll buy whatever is selling. A year later, they complain how expensive everything is and how they just can’t seem to get ahead. I sat down with a friend who was determined to spend $50k to remodel a bathroom in a house that she bought 10 years ago for $200k (which she now owes $280k on). Told her it was a bad investment, she could downgrade the options just a bit and get a perfectly nice functional bathroom for $10k, and watched her take out another HELOC for $50k. She can’t come up with $3k to help with her daughters wedding of course because of inflation.
Had a tenant who had a brand new jeep and wanted to share his joy. He bought it as a reward for finishing his M.A. degree in “Marketing”. He was telling me that the salesman was sooo stupid.
“He kept talking about prices. I kept telling him I just needed to know that I could make the monthly payments. How stupid was that guy!”
Moral of the story: What poor company hired that “marketing genius”?
M.A. from University of Phoenix, in case you’re wondering.
LOL!
He’s now a Congressional staffer, on the appropriations committee most likely.
Everyone I know will just toss every resume with University of Phoenix in the trash since anyone dumb enough to pay crazy money for a degree at a fake college is probably too dumb to do even the most basic work.
So “dumb” they buy apartments and houses for other people who know the game better (or play money making much harder)…….right?
What a great source of pride that must be.
PS Beach boy, is Gladstones still there, or did you only wish you were in that league?
My sister in law is one of these. It hurts my brain to hear her “logic”.
Couldn’t afford a $50 used TV so she decided to go to rent a center and get one for $67 every two weeks.
Doesn’t have a dime to fix the truck with failing brakes, but orders our town’s most expensive pizza every week.
Living rent free in an old house and is six months late on the electric bill, but is actively shopping for something to buy with more space.
Family was not willing to give her $1,000 down payment on a car with 100k miles for 25% interest at the dealership, so she did the second worst thing (we said not to do) and bought an older foreign car from a guy at work. Of course it broke almost immediately, and of course it’s too expensive to fix so it sits in the driveway.
The list goes on, and on…
I knew someone who insisted 10% off meant that the item was $10 off. Regardless whether the item cost $100 or $1000, 10% off meant $10 off. When I asked if something was $5, did that mean that it was free – she paused for a long time but still insisted it meant $10 off.
Some people truly are on the bottom end of the spectrum.
These are the people who say
“Live for today”
And
“You might get hit by a car”
They usually smoke as well and say “you know” a lot when explaining their views.
I met this beautiful gal not long ago who is an absolute financial disaster. She spends everything she makes and then some. She jacks up the credit cards on Amazon purchases and what not, eats out all the time, and never really considers what’s a necessity versus what’s an unneeded impulse purchase. She’s counting on her inheritance, and mommy and daddy still give her money every week. She’s in her mid 40s.
My old roommates were constantly ordering food from Doordash and getting Amazon delivered while still owing me rent. Same old story…
You realize my dear Ransom, there are enough metrics here to pretty much identify her, and therefore you. You assume she does not read WS, but maybe other relatives do. I assume the use of a ‘handle’ is not just a hangover from CB radio days but a wish to remain anonymous.
I’ve been tempted to comment on a relation but not using a handle inhibited me. Now I’ve already said too much.
People can live beyond their means at least once and then file bankruptcy. Filing bankruptcy a 2nd time is a bit more difficult but if you wait 10 years you can do it again. But everyone gets to party on Garth at least once in the US and maybe multiple times.
But subprime car loans do not seem to have a limit on how many times you get to fail.
SoCal:
The American Way is living beyond our means! We have been doing so for years!
We just keep “borrowing” from the world to keep our currency on lock and we’ll “totally pay you back” with the green paper, worth substantially less than what we borrowed.
The individual appears to have been scared straight, and is behaving well.
Because YOU enjoy holding that notion in your head, along with punching down.
You use great adjectives, BTW, like “so many” and “far beyond”.
Right up there with, “like nothing anybody has ever seen before”. And you know who uses that type of adjective to “explain” MANY things to MANY people.
Join another cult, the Beach boys had their day…….
NBay – …cue the scene from ‘Repo Man’ where old repo-pro Bud and new-hire Otto slowly cruise along Edge City’s Skid Row where Bud asks Otto why the folks on that boulevard don’t ‘just pay their bills’…best.
may we all find a better day.
Yeah, Dustoff, I saw a variation on that for real, in a meeting with workers and management during some really problematic times…..one girl (fairly new to management…6mo or so) in total frustration after a long time of things going nowhere, almost yelled, “Why can’t they all just do their jobs and shut up?”
Meeting adjourned shorty after….problems/animosity continued.
Later.
These are good numbers, and with inflation in services is still rising, and core being under-reported, so no way there will be a rate cut. The equities “market” will continue to throw tantrums until the “election”. On that front, I really don’t understand Kamala’s VP pick. Why wouldn’t she pick a VP with a fiscally conservative track record and try to bring in some of the conservative independent voters. It’s like there is an intentional move to continue to divide the country.
What are you babbling on about? The Minnesota economy is doing great.
You don’t think the veteran guy living in an old run down house in a camo hat who answers the call from the democratic nominee while slouching forward in a wooden chair accomplishes that?
Let’s check in to reality once in a while.
The Minnesota Governor’s mansion was built in 1912, and is on Summit Avenue in St. Paul. It is currently undergoing a $12.8M renovation. No, Governor Walz is not living there right now.
In the meantime, Governor Walz is residing in the home that’s normally set up for the President of the University of Minnesota. This home is just south of the Lake Street bridge (Lake Street turns to Marshall Avenue on the St Paul side), which spans the Mississippi river. It’s on River Road and in St Paul. A beautiful home and location. In the summer, you can see the sun setting behind the skyline of Minneapolis from the home.
“… in an old run down house …?”
Old? Maybe. But not run down, eh?
Prairie Rider,
I paid State Income Taxes of 6% to Minnesota last year. Our Sales taxes run between 8.875% to 11.75%. My property taxes equaled 1.5% of my property’s value. But it’s good to hear the Governor will have a roof over his head.
$12.8M renovation? We’ll, we have had inflation.
You are a real piece of work, Dan Romig. Hoping some whacko will do your dirty work like the rest of your ilk?
Tell us again how successful you are…..list all your expensive stuff and so on.
Did you block that apt building that was going to ruin your view?
No big biofilm yet….too bad.
NBay,
All I did was correct a false statement about where my state’s governor lives.
“Hoping some whacko will do your dirty work like the rest of your ilk?”
WTF?
Stellantis laying off 2400 workers due cancellation of Classic Ram.
I wonder if the Fed notices.
RE: Kam’s VP: Checks the ‘not weird’ box.
Apparently T picked Vance because he’s like T. If ever anyone did not need to double down on ‘weird’. Also might have been an idea for T’s VP pick to be a woman, to broaden the ticket instead of focusing it. As for either VP or Pres knowing, or being able to understand economics, check what D. Stockman has to say about Reagan in “The Triumph of Politics”
If we keep up this chat we might get spanked you know.
Stellantis jacked up its truck prices to ridiculous levels during the pandemic, and now it doesn’t want to cut them. So it is up to its ears in truck inventory. We’ve talked about it for months. 150 days supply plus.
It needs to cut prices massively or pile on HUGE incentives, to unwind the ridiculous price spikes during the pandemic. But it wants to protect its obscene profit margins to please Wall Street.
I hope the company drowns to death in its overpriced truck inventory. Their pandemic greed was just outrageous, worst of them all.
Let those European econobox makers figure out how to sell trucks in the USA.
Well written #2…..but that’s your “job”.
Well written #1.
The general rule of picking a VP is do no harm and if you get some benefit then great. You only have to look to Bentsen/Quayle and others to see that people don’t vote for 2nd in command.
I remember being in the USA without a driving license and thinking OK I can just walk to this “WalMart” just a couple of miles anyway got up to this 6 lane highway and no method to cross. No subway, no pedestrian bridge, no markings so yes its interesting you could for many consider cars as a compulsory purchase in the US. The road i was on just fed into the other one. I had to run over in the end, this was Lousiana.
That aside, you could argue that these delinquencies in the matter of compulsory debt (for cars, if you think that) basically support the idea that the Fed has interest rates too high now, and that they have been too high for a while.
Its very possible and I think also although the Fed of course doesn’t have a mechanical correction to always keep annual inflation at 2%, and instead has 2% as a minimum, there must be pressure on the Fed to go higher than -required- because the actors in the economy -do look- at the average inflation rate over the last 10 years.
i.e. there is a downside to allowing inflation overshoots, which is that you also later have to have rates too high!, for credibility. In short, these statistics point to an overly high base rate.
In which case the Fed is going to be forced into a rate cut pretty soon for the demands of now, which will be too low for long term expectations.
I dropped my first car off several times at a nearby mechanic and walked like 5 miles home.
Would have to figure out a ride up there the next day.
Just make those calls baby and bribe friends! :)
I’ve dropped my vehicle off at the mechanic & rode my bike, which I stuffed into the back seat/hatch area, back home several times. Going over a few overpasses had me wheezing, wondering “Is this how I go out?”
If it was raining heavily or very hot, then it’s time to look-up old school friends still in the area as previously mentioned.
Thankfully, my kids got older & were able to drive me when needed.
(I do admit to an ulterior motive when buying each of them a reliable used car: back-up transportation. haha !)
I used to put a bike in the back and ride home when I dropped a car off at the mechanic, but today I just take UBER or LYFT (that is cheaper “and easier” than having my wofe come and get me). In the apartment business I am aware of how many cars all my residents own and with the price of cars (and gas & insurance) going up so much I am seeing a lot more married couples going with ont car (and using UBER & LYFT when they need to go two places at the same time).
Shelter “Provider”,
Well if they are managing to save some money, your business plan is to get it before someone else does, right? Or worse yet, they might be able to save it!
You own pile could possibly remained fixed!……the horror of it!
Having ENOUGH? That is impossible.
Commodity prices keep going down. Wheat and corn prices are back to 2007 prices. Down 50% from the peak of a couple years ago. (I am thinking some food companies are probably not cutting the price so they should see nice profits)
Productivity gains have kept corn and wheat pretty steady for 17 years. Not really affected by inflation.
Energy commodity prices are down over the past 2 years and really have not had any long term inflation over the past 10.
This is good news on the fight against inflation. It could be worse.
The above should help with current inflation readings some. I think we cut once or twice this year to get around 4.5%.
The problem is: Services weighs heavily on inflation calculation and they are not going down.
noticed some more big used car/truck dealers in my area have packed up and left their giant lots they’ve been in more than 20 years, along with other big businesses non auto related just vacating all over. couple days ago I went into a small dealer on Beach boulevard that I know has been there probably more than 30 years to get a purchase contract I had run out. I was speaking to the guy how slow it is for me and he said he didn’t have one person and he was losing money every month now. On a side note I wanted to watch the first preseason NFL game since things are so slow so I went to the Tilted Kilt in Orange one of the biggest and busiest sports bars in a good area. I had been there a couple years ago and it’s like a
double sized Hooters with screens all over the place . It looked all fine from the outside, got to the door… locked and permanently closed. I shook my head walked back to my car and asked who doesn’t want NFL and drinking that’s like the last thing anyone would cut back on. so I’m planning to watch every Charger game which is my team at Michaels in Westminster. yes I’m a Chargers fan longtime and this year I’m buying my first Jersey ever.
Stellantis (Chrysler + 13 other assorted makes) is shutting down a truck manufacturing facility in Michigan as demand has dried up for that stuff along with its $100,000+ Jeeps which aren’t selling for some odd reason these day at its dealers…
Stellantis is up to its ears in truck inventory. We’ve talked about it for months. 150 days supply plus. It jacked up its truck prices to ridiculous levels during the pandemic, and now it doesn’t want to cut them. It needs to cut prices massively or pile on HUGE incentives, but it wants to protect its obscene profit margins to please Wall Street.
I hope the company drowns to death in its overpriced truck inventory. Their pandemic greed was just outrageous.
Let those European econobox makers figure out how to sell trucks in the USA.
1:04 PM 8/9/2024
Dow 39,497.54 51.05 0.13%
S&P 500 5,344.16 24.85 0.47%
Nasdaq 16,745.30 85.28 0.51%
VIX 20.73 -3.06 -12.86%
Gold 2,467.60 4.30 0.17%
Oil 77.03 0.84 1.10%
Dealer have to hit on 16?
Didn’t think so…..no rules….no boundaries…..some National “game”, eh?
Obviously unclear if rate cuts will occur this year or be beginning of next but we aren’t that far out. Seems like when these happen the prices of many things that are often financed, houses/cars/etc., will stay high or possibly go higher. While some things have come down in price, especially in certain segments, and of course their have been wage gains, it doesn’t necessarily feel like after all this the consumer will come out ahead.
My five vehicles cost me less than $30,000 in total, including my 1937 Cord.
The least dependable vehicle is my 2002 BMW Touring Wagon, because of the stinking computers. Anyone who buys a piece of garbage built in this century gets what he deserves.
They all run fine, except for the new BMW.
Is your Touring (station) wagon a 3-Series or a 5-Series? What engine does it have in it? All of that is way more at issue than the computers which are quite limited in the early 2000s and have few if any issues ever. The correct way to diagnose any matters is to use INPA and or ISTA which are the official BMW diagnostic software and are superb. Help is usually available in most of the BMW online forums.
Yep, the E39 and E46 inline 6 cars are some of the best ever made. Very dependable, safe, fun to drive, and easy to fix with cheap parts available online.
I also dislike how computerized modern cars are, but I wouldn’t throw that much of recent car history out.
Fuel injection controlled by the ECU has been standard since the 90s, and as SCBD mentions that stuff is pretty reliable.
I have a little OBDII to USB dongle for my car. I can plug it into my computer and customize the fuel tables, VTEC crossover, gas pedal sensitivity etc. It’s pretty cool.
But I have no idea how or why a car would need a “wireless update” and I dispise those giant tablet screens that all the newer models have. It’s like they want people to be distracted behind the wheel.
For when the throttle by wire or computer assisted steering and breaking start killing people like the Toyota’s did?
Just a guess…..
That despicable dash tablet you mention HAS to have a lot of “modes” to fill it up with “features” that salesmen can be taught how to sell…..and to be bragged about to a neighbor. No actual driving necessary.
Auto shop partner 2010-13 had one of your “dongles” in his laptop for an appx 2000-2005 Volvo….kinda cool to play with…good learning tool, anyway. Careful though, you might corrupt the “Houston we have a problem” routines and play “CHP in powerful Lexus @ full throttle”. Just changing throttle pressure scares the shit out of me.
I would have thought a 37 Cord in basically solid restorable condition would alone be 30K.
Trump browbeating the Central Bankers, is his Achilles’s Heal. Don’t do it Donnie.
If Donnie does happen to win, it wouldn’t be out of character for him to leave out the standard phrase in the Inaugural Oath, ‘to respect the independence of the Federal Reserve’. Except it would be honest.
The ‘strong man’ phenom, once unfettered, ruined Germany, Italy, and France. The last today worships Napoleon, forgetting that by
his final departure half its young men were dead. At least the French have the excuse of two centuries fogging history. But incredibly there is now a cult of Mussolini in Italy. The only people who could reasonably light a candle to his memory are the Allies.
This desire for ruthless rule, even if inept, is perhaps a mass psychology variation of sadism/ masochism.
Nick – …interesting that the ‘strong man’ protagonist vs. a singular, distinct ‘evil’ forms the basis for so much of our mass-‘entertainment’ from the earliest ages up, despite the fact that a much-more mundane, difficult to relate (and much-less ‘entertaining’) general tale of compromise/cooperation is necessary for a successful civilization to endure…
may we all find a better day.
All very true, Nick, Dustoff…….
“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested…..”
-Francis Bacon
The fav Musso pose: head tilted back, chin pointed up, eyes looking down.
T likes the full right side hard downward stare, implying, “I know EXACTLY what is going on over there….or anywhere else”.
It DOES show he has less than normal cranial cerebral space, though, (which technically may or may not have a correlation to ability, but let’s just say the odds ARE reduced)
And head is ALWAYS swiveled quickly, showing TOTAL awareness and therefore command of any situation……he may be better than Reagan, and Ronnie was sort of a professional actor with a bit tougher script to follow.
Let them run with whatever they’re going to do, heck, it could be Volker years, but you will come out shining as long as you disregard the FED and let them do their thing. Just an opinion but i admire what The FED did to get inflation under control, after Covid and sleepy Joes helm, who wasn’t there in mind, but body.
Donnie, you talk about influencing the FED Rate? Your trending very close to a Banana republic. Similar to the ones who set you up on those Kangaroo charges.
Just take it what the FED is going to do — and leave it at that.
My humble advice.
The number of used cars being financed may be dropping, but the dealers don’t want it that way.
I’m shopping for a car right now (for the 1st time in 10 years) and EVERY dealer has a “finance assistance” deal of up to $1500 which is built into the list price — which means when I tell them I want to pay cash, they say “Oh. Then you’ll have to pay $1500 more for the car.”
When I tell them I won’t do that, they say “Well, then we can’t sell it to you.”
I wonder how much longer that sort of dastardly thing can go on?
Usually you can shop around and avoid this but it makes sense right now. If this is the only option can’t you just get the financing and then just pay all the principal right away or do car loans not work that way?
You can agree to finance and make a deal if it’s the best option. Then the next day, you can pay off the entire loan, either at the dealer or at the finance company.
There are generally no penalties on auto loans for early payoffs. But read the finance contract carefully.
Quite true. My latest experience with this followed a second test drive. The dealer ran the numbers on the bare minimum finance ($7000) and begged me to NOT pay off the loan sooner than six months out. He said the interest I’d pay was way less than giving up the financial assistance incentive. He even told me if I paid it earlier, the bank would fine the dealership for the incentive they earned for bringing them a loan. He could tell I wasn’t really interested in his bottom line.
On the way out the door, his boss galloped up to my window and said “What if we just do away with the 1500 and you can buy for cash at the asking price?” I replied, “That’s a step in right direction!” I think they figured, why should we all go through so much trouble just to arrive at the same place?
I didn’t commit to the man, but finally we got down to the most important thing for a dealership: moving metal.
I am on record here as having been “in the market” for a used vehicle.
This is no longer the case for a handful of reasons. Affordability still sucks: what I want is overpriced, financing rates are high.
The need we anticipated is considerably less.
The tradeoff is I buy more fuel for my “so-so” sub 20 mpg vehicles, and the tires and maintenance. At 10 and almost 20 years old they have low-ish mileage and in my town one actually CAN subsist without a car!
Ebikes and public transit are all the rage. We generally do our grocery shopping 70 miles away though.
Anyone who would buy a computer-controlled car built in the 21st century is a virtually certified moron. Somehow, my five vehicles get me everywhere that I want to go. I will admit that I have a piece of crap 2002 BMW 525I, Touring Wagon that I can keep running (when the computers aren’t whining). It is easily the worst car in my stable.
My 1937 Cord 810 is the most dependable of the lot.
Although the 1999 GMC pickup is still hauling any loads asked of it.