THE STUPID – IT BURNS

Two charts revealing how stupid the average American remains. Despite what should have been a once in lifetime lesson from 2005 through 2010 on the dangers of excessive leverage, dumbass Americans have been led like sheep to slaughter again by the Wall Street cabal, Madison Avenue maggots, and the mega-corporate purveyors of materialism. Wall Street is issuing more credit cards today than they did at the 2008 peak, and 90% more than they did in 2009.

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The automakers, their finance divisions, and Wall Street have “sold” a new $40,000 vehicle to every Tom, Dick, and Lakesha in Amurica with subprime loans, 7 year 0% interest “deals”, and low payment leases. Now, tens of millions of these dumbasses are underwater on their auto loans. But wait. These people are so fucking stupid they NEED a new vehicle and are trading in their underwater 3 year old vehicles for another $40,000 ride. Gotta keep up with the Joneses. Just roll the old loan into the new loan and drive off the lot underwater from the get go. Simply brilliant. Meanwhile, auto loan delinquencies are soaring.

The idiocy of people taking on this level of debt once again, so they can pretend to live the good life, is mind boggling to behold by rational thinking individuals. The decay and rot of this unsustainable system is clear and the stench from our fetid putrefying carcass of a faux democracy is overwhelming.

Two quotes come to mind when you see mindless Americans in action in this great democracy of ours.

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”Mencken

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”Carlin 


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Gator
Gator

Sure do love my 13 year old paid off truck. I smile every time I read one of these articles because I know so many people who are like this, but I am not one of them. Plent last weekend on the outside of my truck, the paint is so slick I can’t even sit the bottle of detailing spray on my hood, it just slides off. Clay barred it, then did a coat of paint cleaner, a cost of cleaner/filler, 2 coats of Zaino z5 on top of that, then a coat of finishing polish. Doing the interior this weekend. Interior glass polish, clean some ‘kid damage’ out of the carpet, vacuum it out, remove everything that doesn’t need to be there, followed by leather cleaner and Zaino leathersoft conditioner that makes the interior smell like a fine leather store. Looks better than most new cars, and should be good for another 175k.

Now that I’m getting shit from my wife about hers still being dirty, looks like I gotta take care of her(also paid off) vehicle next weekend. People can’t seem to understand that when they are 60 years old and have nothing saved, they aren’t going to look back with nostalgia at spending 500/month on a new car every few years during their prime earning years. They are going to look back and think of the 100k plus they wasted on one-upping the neighbors or the other guys at work.

Stephanie Shepard

I’ve currently been looking for a car to buy since my lovely ’99 Alero has started smoking out the back and dying in traffic every time it rains. I lose my damn mind every time I try to look up used cars online. I can’t believe several people believe their 8-10 year old cars with 150K-250K miles are worth $3,000-6,000. When I was in high school all cars that were 10-15 years old with more than 100K miles were assumed $500-2,000 cars to be bought for teenagers, college students, and desperately poor with bad/no credit.

rhs jr

Who is the most stupid? Minorities living like minor Potentates on the system or the majority Sheeple working two jobs, paying the taxes and being racially discriminated against? The minorities are distributors of the government’s printed money to keep the system going and the Democrats in power. The minorities are a growing Fifth Column FSA that will be used to destroy the last Useful Idiot Capitalist Sheeple. Wake up because The Black Mahdi Communist Tyrant is facing a Counter Revolution he intends to destroy.

Bea Lever
Bea Lever

Stephanie- Try looking on Cargurus.com, I use that site a lot and I think you could find a replacement vehicle on there.

Stephanie Shepard

Bea Lever- Thanks for the tip. I’ve already decided I’m not buying another vehicle until this sub prime auto market goes up in smoke. I’d rather buy a bicycle or walk than get ripped off.

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”

James the Wanderer

Steph, remember “cash for clunkers”? Took a lot of serviceable vehicles out of the market permanently, while replacing them with more-expensive junk that rots faster. On top of that, liar loans for autos are also out of sight – best to check with relatives (if they take care of theirs) for possible replacements. You have my sympathy!

jhpace1
jhpace1

It’s not just inflation, as Stephanie Shepard says above (my 73-year-old father is fond of saying “In my day $40,000 had a doorbell on it!”), but it’s also preferential treatment. Name a bank willing to give you a loan for a used vehicle? But I see illegals driving new vehicles down the interstate all the time. Why are the car dealerships giving them financial aid but I cannot get that same financial aid? And when the car breaks down, the illegals just leave it on the side of the road. Or take the entire diesel/Volkswagen issue. Name me an American mid-sized or full-sized sedan that gets 44+ mpg on diesel for less than $30,000. But you can find them in Europe, sometimes at 55+ mpg. The US Federal politicians and three-letter organizations will no longer allow diesel passenger cars be built in the USA.

So the “in the box” solution is to A.) keep the oil companies employed, and B.) keep the car manufacturers and dealership line employed with cars that get 15 mpg, cost as much as a house, break down every 3 months, pay property tax and gasoline tax to the localities, and is impossible to sell after driving it for 6 months. Why does this echo the college tuition, textbook, and degree program?

DRUD
DRUD

We have a couple of long term loans on vehicles right now. According to conventional wisdom this is foolish, especially when we would pay them off tomorrow. Then we could save x number of dollars a month and invest it and gain a nice healthy compounding return over the next 30….bullshit. Conventional wisdom does not work during a Fourth Turning. The question I ask myself, and granted this is after our budget is balanced and ZERO credit card interest is paid EVER, is “What to do with disposable cash?” Sure, we could pay off debts. But to what end…so that we could slowly build up a cash in a savings account. That’s what we have now. Why? So we don’t pay exorbitant carrying charges? The interest rates are so ridiculously low the whole thing costs like a grand over six years. Peanuts. And what if the Fed gets its way and gets inflation really kicked into high gear, and then, whoops, just like always they overcook it? Hey, suddenly, as long as I can keep an income stream I’m paying of cars, my house, my solar panels with ever more worthless FRNs. I win. But, you say, debt is VERY bad in deflation. True. But what will this economy look like if real deflation hits and gas stations can’t get credit to buy fucking gas, so then none of us can? My cars don’t matter much then and neither do the notes on them. Come and fucking Repo them along with 100 million others. Not going to happen. My point is not that borrowing money is great and a wise thing to do. Neither is it that the vast majority of ‘Murikans are not financially stupid beyond belief. They are. My point is that you can’t use the formula that worked during the last 70 years and expect it to work for the next 20. It will not. Scrimping and saving Dollars, whether it be in 401K, savings, CDs, equities, bonds, etc. does not guarantee you a nice cozy retirement. Sure, it worked great for my parents, but I believe they aged in a unique time in all of human history. All indications tell me that we are going to revert to an older, more difficult way of doing things and an harsher version of retirement.

DRUD
DRUD

Here’s the way I think about managing cash and thinking about the future. This is just one example. There are 70 or so acres of nice land adjacent to a friend of mine about 50 miles south of Denver. I’d love to just buy it and slowly build a doomstead. Right now it lists at $210K and PLENTY of people would say that is a steal. But NOTHING is a steal at the top of a bubble. Now, can I envision a scenario where this same land is for sale at 80-100K three years down the road, but you’ve got to have half down. Hell, yes. Can I envision a scenario where the digital fiat has collapsed, physical cash is key and I can pick it up this land for 4-5k of folding dead presidents. Yes I can. Can I imagine a world where physical cash is completely worthless and I can pick up the land for 2-3 ounces of gold. Yes I can. In my mind, financial prep is looking as far down each of these roads as I can.

Spinolator
Spinolator

Well, I might need a newer car in a couple of years, so I sincerely appreciate these peeps taking the depreciation hit…There are plenty of used cars out there in great shape that can be had for cash…

Gryffyn
Gryffyn

We are living in the most interesting and unpredictable of times. Change is constant, at least in our current paradigm. So what do we do? Rather than spend all our slave wages on crap, gather up some assets. Find a way out of the debt matrix. That hundred dollar dinner
will be down the toilet in no time, when the same hundred could be
paying for a piece of land or something else that will retain and increase in value. If we get over the phony ego thing of putting up a false front, it is easy to drive an old car that is paid for, buy well made, brand name clothing at the local consignment or thrift store, and shop the sales for essentials. It can be a game, as much fun as any other.

starfcker
starfcker

Jimbob, you’re still the king of Zerohedge, this baby has 100,000 reads and counting.

1912
1912

DRUD is very on point. The older folks reading this article and feeling good about themselves need to realize that their marginal utility of living with “no fucks given” about anyone else is only viable for a certain standard of living. The only reason people try to one-up each other is to gain certain social advantages in society which theoretically should improve their overall economical situation in the long run. Unless you have a very specific and highly valued technical skill (or exisiting wealth via luck/inheritance), the only way to advance in society is to gain the respect of others and work with them to create synergies in order to move up the tax bracket. However, people are inherently self-segragating, and most younger people need to compete in a certain material sense (whether it’s cars, houses, stuff) in order to belong to those social groups who are making headway in the socio-economic ladder. For example, you can’t black-tie events showing up in a 20 year old car wearing stuff from the local thrift store and expect people to look favorably upon you. Anyways, this little message will probably fall on deaf ears since most of the commenters here seem to be much closer to the self-sufficient doomsday prepper type than the urban ambitious young professional type…then again, I did get redirected here from zerohedge…

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