Guest Post by Eric Peters
Uncle – his mandates and fatwas – have without doubt made new cars (and trucks) more expensive.
But then, so have we.
By choosing to sign up for more car than we can afford – made to seem affordable via the flim-flam of “low monthly payments” stretched over twice as many years as was formerly typical – we inadvertently inflate the cost of cars generally.
People – not all of us, but a working majority – elect to buy the optional gadgets, the extras and luxuries. This creates demand for them. We are not forced to buy these things, unlike air bags and back-up cameras and all the fatwa’d things – but because a working majority does buy them – finances them – they’ve become de facto fatwas. 
Like a rip tide, this has had the effect of dragging us all along with the current – including those among us who would rather not live beyond our means for the sake of owning an increasingly expensive disposable appliance whose value will be half what we paid for it five or six years later.
Continue reading “It’s Not Just Uncle”
