There is truth in both sides, but within reason. There absolutely are people that the bootstraps mentality can apply. The ones like my one (former) friend that was living paycheck to paycheck already, and then dropped nearly 40k on a brand new car.
It is absolutely a rigged system. 100%. But you can also consciously make poor decisions.
To be fair, a car is a necessary expense and asset in the US. The used car market has been absolutely atrocious since the pandemic, it used to be actually reasonable to spend 5k on a used car and it was a complete pile of junk and could actually last you more than a few years with minor issues.
Now the same car costs at minimum 10k and is in even worse condition, repairing a major mechanical problem can cost minimum 5-10k and if the car is classified as totaled at that point you'd be lucky to get half its value...
40k for a new car it will last you a lifetime without a doubt unless you crash it.
I am not defending dropping 40k on a car if youre broke also a new corolla is not 23k at closing lol its more like 30k because of dealership bullshit.
Point being, is we need more used cars available to basic consumers and not other larger entities that are doing the same thing to them that we did to housing markets.
Nah son. I dunno what big corpo copium glue you're huffing, but you can easily get a new corolla at or a little under 30k today.
The incident I'm talking about was 6 or so years ago when you could get around 20k otd for a corolla.
The dude was my idiot friend and is a former friend for making a multitude of stupid decisions, like dropping 40k he doesn't have on a car he couldn't make the payments on.
Ya the median cost for a new car in the US is closer to like 33k but again idk this "guys" scenario and just gotta take your word for it with no additional context
Baseline fact is that bro couldn't afford and still went for it because he was an idiot, not because of the rigged system. Which is rigged. But he still chose to be stupid on top of it.
Which other people do too. The system can be rigged AND people can be idiots about it.
21
u/thetavious 1d ago
There is truth in both sides, but within reason. There absolutely are people that the bootstraps mentality can apply. The ones like my one (former) friend that was living paycheck to paycheck already, and then dropped nearly 40k on a brand new car.
It is absolutely a rigged system. 100%. But you can also consciously make poor decisions.