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Comment by heyoni | Hacker News Reader

The point is that your average person that might prioritize a car, a less expensive endeavor over a house cannot afford to do so. Financing a car isn’t the issue, the fact that owning a home somewhere where jobs are is hopeless means people are going to spend their money elsewhere.

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That’s incoherent. If you want to buy a home, but cant right now, financing a vehicle is an issue. You’re not “spending your money elsewhere”, you’re taking major debt to drive something you can’t afford, and paying dearly for it at the cost of your real goal, which is now further away than it otherwise would have been.

In my experience/opinion, a major problem is people think in terms of monthly cash flow when trying to decide if they can afford something. That’s the fast lane for ending up in a place where you’re breaking even with monthly payments and never having much to show for it. Or, “the average person” I think you called them. The very same person that can’t come up with $600 in an emergency or whatever.

> In my experience/opinion, a major problem is people think in terms of monthly cash flow

Bingo bango friend. People's thinking is rooted in how they think the economy is moving. It's irrational but here it is, if they feel hopeless about ever become homeowners, they will spend money on smaller things because...why wouldn't they? There is no greater expense than a home.

You decided people want to finance expensive cars to serve your conceited view. Financing a modest car or getting any car is unfortunately an obvious goal for many because the U.S has designed itself to make it as hard as possible to get around, especially for people without cars.

If you have to finance it, in what way is it a modest car? It’s not as if people are financing $2000 junkers. I’ve paid cash for every car I’ve owned, including when I was a teenager flipping burgers. Why aren’t these 59% buying junkers instead of going into debt and paying interest on a depreciated asset? Are you just going to blame America and society, or do we blame the people signing the loan papers at some point?

Congratulations on buying every car you've had with cash, I don't really see how that's relevant, everyone is dealt a different hand. Dealers are horrible, definitely blame them, but if the job you get is 30 min away by car and 1.5hrs any other way, then financing a modest ~6-12k car that's somewhere between rust bucket and new is not an unreasonable idea. That's what I did, paid it off in relatively short order, it helped me make money, seems pretty rational.

Wasn't there another report that indicated most people don't even have $500 saved for emergencies? Seems like a much more manageable few hundred a month on less of a practical liability would be wise.

Lastly, we should absolutely blame 70+ years of car-centric development and cultural propaganda on people desiring one so badly. There's always going to be people who would get themselves into a giant $50k+ truck to drive around the city with a 10%+ loan because they're morons, but it's malicious thinking to attribute stupidity to a majority of people wanting a car

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