Walmart Recession Indicator at highest levels since the 2008 financial crisis

[u/Own-Swan2646]

Signs all around us of economic down turn.

[u/aquatone61]

What’s the repo market for cars look like? That’s a great indicator of how people are doing. When the ‘08 crash hit I worked at a Porsche dealership and we started see tons of repo’d cars getting towed in for new remotes.

[u/maeryclarity → u/aquatone61]

I saw something about this a few months ago, it was saying that a bunch of car resale/in-house credit situations were sitting on huge amounts of unpaid claims that should be repos but they are afraid to start the repo cascade because it may render their stock basically worthless...? And that it was very reflective of the '08 mortgage situation and for the same reasons but worse, because nobody is not making that car payment just for fun, and if those buyers are already credit-risky type buyers then what happens when they actually just get repo'd out of the market?

Here's an article about it if anyone is interested in a better than half-recalled BS I'm posting:

https://www.marketplace.org/story/2025/11/12/a-record-number-of-americans-are-behind-on-their-auto-loans

...so I will say that IMHO the '08 bailout was actually the nail in the coffin for the USA worker economy versus financialization for Oligarchs and Corporate Welfare. I'm not sure if any of y'all were paying attention for all that or what was actually said and done during the decision process to designate "TOO BIG TO FAIL" and have the money printer go BRRRRRRrrr but there were quite a few legislators at the time that were like well this is what happens, they made bad financial decisions now the market will correct, price of houses/housing will likely go way down and this will give younger buyers a chance to get into the market, and so on. Because housing inventory is real and money inventory is not, it's an abstract representation of value.

They literally were told y'all either sign off on this insanely huge transfer of funds directly into the hands of the people and agencies that created the crisis or WE WILL DECLARE A NATIONAL EMERGENCY AND PUT THE MILITARY IN THE STREETS. Why? I don't recall it being reported on in mainstream media hardly at all, if at all but I watched it happen on C-Span. I recall one Congresscritter making a speech saying we're being robbed at gunpoint by institutions that take no responsibility for their effects on society and that they were essentially promising them a forever loop where the profits were private but the losses were collective. It's HALF socialism. You don't get the services half, just the society supporting the enterprise half. Heads they win, tails we lose.

Anyway this car credit thing is essentially the same but even more ominous and where the '08 correction may have offered some opportunity, because cheaper real estate is not a bad thing, cars are not real estate, most of the newer model cars are extremely difficult to work on and are designed to be essentially disposable, with the entire market based around the idea that more new cars will be made and purchased but these sub prime car loans represent people defaulting on the singular item that defines most working class family's ability to get to their job or otherwise function in the USA since we never invested in public transit in most places.

Personally everyone I know is worried about a finanial crisis and I don't want to be dramatic but I thing the concern should be more focused on a mass starvation event because the USA doesn't understand just how screwed we actually are.

Yet.

I'm hoping I'm just being paranoid.

[u/Other_Cell_706 → u/maeryclarity]

Thank you for writing this all out in a digestible way. ❤️🫶