Preaching to the choir, you gotta hit the pavement like a missionary and win the unconverted.

And the rub here is that any money you put on rails is inefficiently converted into cash to purchase things that the consumer wants instead. As much as it rubs America the wrong way, giving people cash with no strings is way more efficient as a means of help than trying to lock it down and creating a barter system for…

And who would Jalopnik readers rather deal with? Idiots who blow their money because they are financially illiterate or advocates for African Americans who rightly point out inherently awful parts of our society playing out in credit access?

Thank you for explaining what turned me off to cars in general - I bought a used car for 2k in the early aughts off of CL - timing belt went out a few months later - auto transmission went out a few months after that. Wound up costing me about 2.5k after all was said and done and eventually sold it to a guy who had a…

Get out there in front of dealerships selling your services for small nominal fee (like a sack of burgers or a 6 pack of your favorite beer) as a consumer advocate. No amount of wishes is going to affect consumer behavior or save them from their own ignorance.

This western decadence.

Preaching to the choir. Perhaps we should all spend time outside of dealerships holding signs, imploring people to buy a car that makes sense, not one that imbues you with psyche benefits.

Hey, if less people have access to credit maybe we’ll get less people thumping their chests online about how much smarter they are than bad debtors who make bad choices.

Exactly! EXACTLY!

But if you don’t buy a car that says something about you as an American - you’re poor or self righteous.

Good thing there’s a drive to keep people stupid, up to their eyes in debt and never questioning creditor’s wisdom until they’ve made a problem that affects everyone.

Who do you think you’ll have a better time reaching through all possible avenues up to and including legislation? Dumb consumers driven by need and peacocking or people whose entire profession it is to be more financially saavy than the consumer to make a profit?

Incorrect, many people care what other people drive and what your domicile looks like and where it’s located. Just because a handful of Jalopnik readers are so above it all in every regard doesn’t mean squat when the dude in the article is representitive of a far greater number of actual people than the self indulgent…

It’d be like blaming farmers for putting tapeworms in food to ensure that starving people stay hungry.

What happens when you’re materially affected by the poor decisions of many more people? You just hop online and complain about all the stupids ruining stuff for the responsible types?

Charging appropriately for risk is synonymous with leeching every penny out of poor risk to the point it forces default and you can repeat the process on some other hapless rube with a slightly depreciated asset.

“Sure the thugs are to blame but since someone is obviously to blame and there’s no conversation or virtue signaling in that so I’ll talk about how the other party in the situation should have done everything different to avoid being a victim.”

Sounds like you should become a loan originator who tells people no. Sure you’ll lose your job quickly because you’re not generating any revenue but hey, you helped at least a handful of people from making a grave mistake?

How is it the bank’s fault? Have you ever heard the term covenant involving debt? It’s a wink wink nod nod “We know you can’t pay but we’ll get as much profit from you as possible before that point” and the debtor replies “I know that i’ll probably default but you’re giving me what I need now, I’ll shunt that…

It’s like nobody who is being a haughty dipshit here was affected in the least by idiots with loose money trying to get a slice of theirs in the housing bubble.