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John Oliver talks about Sub-Prime Auto Loans

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what is the interest rate on these loans? I just did a loan through my bank on a new Honda Fit. 1.99% interest rate over 5 years. Almost doesn't even seem like it's worth it for the bank, they are making so little over a 5 year span.

edit: just got to the part in the video... up to 29% sheesh.
 
Agreed. I'm
unfortunately
living in Brampton now, and need to commute to Bolton every day for work. which is impossible by transit as there is only one bus service that even goes up there in sporadic intervals.

I'm actually in the process of buying a car now. It's costs me 26 bucks one way with uber every day to go up there, and I have to usually ask for a ride back if I'm in lucky. But looking at my insurance rates, I'm looking to pay 500+ bucks a month just in insurance.

I'm fortunate enough to have options to finance, but Brampton is being built in a way that doesn't help the job situation. All the jobs are outside of the city because our city council prioritizes building subdivisions and homes over industrial/work space. It feels like everyone that lives in Brampton have to go outside of Brampton for work, which adds to the traffic snarl. I firmly believe better city planning would help the transit situation, but we are stuck on our current path now.


And living in Brampton alone punishes you on insurance because of the high insurance fraud rates.

Are you an alumni of a university or with an employer that can get you a good group insurance rate? Are you under 25? 500 a month seems high.
 
Sure, if you want to increase road congestion and pollution.

Automated driving done right will not increase congestion. In fact, with automated driving and carpool scheduling software, it will help alleviate congestion. Example: I schedule my car to pick me up at my house at 830 am for my shift at the gamestop at 930. Using my share app, I can see there are 10 requests for carpool trips within my trip, and select 4 of them for a cost of five bucks each. Now, my self driving car can use the carpool lane and I just made 20 bones (minus a small 5 percent service charge from the app provider).

On top of that, self driving cars will be forced to go the limit and use optimal routes, therefor limiting pollution.

I don't see this happening for another 20 years though. But I'm willing to wait to avoid buses and trains, which are not realistic for people who don't work in super dense large cities like Chicago. In Canada, the federal and provincial gov't have taken no real leadership in the public transit matter and everything is behind by 30 years. Unfortunately, we're going to have to rely on companies like Apple, Tesla and Google to alleviate the nightmare that is transit in any form in southern ontario.
 
Agreed. I'm
unfortunately
living in Brampton now, and need to commute to Bolton every day for work. which is impossible by transit as there is only one bus service that even goes up there in sporadic intervals.

I'm actually in the process of buying a car now. It's costs me 26 bucks one way with uber every day to go up there, and I have to usually ask for a ride back if I'm in lucky. But looking at my insurance rates, I'm looking to pay 500+ bucks a month just in insurance.

I'm fortunate enough to have options to finance, but Brampton is being built in a way that doesn't help the job situation. All the jobs are outside of the city because our city council prioritizes building subdivisions and homes over industrial/work space. It feels like everyone that lives in Brampton have to go outside of Brampton for work, which adds to the traffic snarl. I firmly believe better city planning would help the transit situation, but we are stuck on our current path now.

Yeah I moved here recently and work near the airport in Mississauga. Holy shit the traffic is insane. The 407 was shut down one day last week due to a flipped transport and it took me almost 2 hours to get 17km.

I was hoping to find something closer as I'll be job hunting soon, but everything around here is residential. I have a background working IT in an educational setting so I'm hoping to swing something like that again.

I've yet to use public transit here, I'd have to for a GAF meetup but they keep getting scheduled on days where I have work or family stuff happening. But hey, look at it this way - I used to live in a place outside Sudbury where there were no buses and you had to take a trans cab to get on the one bus that went to the city. That bus came 2-3 times a day and was never on time. Then I moved out a little further and I couldn't even get the cab anymore. You need a vehicle to live up there.
 
The public transportation debate aside, I'm conflicted on bad auto loans for people with horrible credit histories. Aside from whether more spending should or shouldn't be spent on public transportation, the reality is that for many people who are out of work or under employed, the only vehicle for better employment is, pun-intended, their car. To do that, it means that the lender (in this case, the shady used car lot) is taking a high risk by lending to someone who has a history of not paying their bills/loans, and so the rates are very high. The buyer has a known risk (usually, except if there are variable rate auto loans), a set payment each month that they have to pay for a depreciating asset, but the car lender has an unknown risk, providing an asset to somebody in exchange for the promise that they will pay for that asset when they have a history of not paying.

The risk justifies the rate, and the necessity of the reality of needing a car for most people justifies that risk and rate being a requirement for the asset. It's shady to go to the "We lend to everyone!" used auto lots, but they're a necessity because people in the US typically need cars to find better employment.
 
Except we really don't want to be subsidizing people getting stuff they can't afford, again (on top of all the environmental and congestion issues you would be encouraging.)

The problem is we don't know if a fair car loan is something they can't afford. My parents had poor credit growing up and were forced into a car loan for a used car with high milage at 350+ a month. That kind of premium, in combination with a random repair needed to pass a state inspection...if it had been a low milage car fairly priced with student loan interest rates it would have definitely been affordable, and it's the same for many families.

Like student loans you wouldn't be able to burn this off via bankruptcy so it's one fair chance at it.
 
The public transportation debate aside, I'm conflicted on bad auto loans for people with horrible credit histories. Aside from whether more spending should or shouldn't be spent on public transportation, the reality is that for many people who are out of work or under employed, the only vehicle for better employment is, pun-intended, their car. To do that, it means that the lender (in this case, the shady used car lot) is taking a high risk by lending to someone who has a history of not paying their bills/loans, and so the rates are very high. The buyer has a known risk (usually, except if there are variable rate auto loans), a set payment each month that they have to pay for a depreciating asset, but the car lender has an unknown risk, providing an asset to somebody in exchange for the promise that they will pay for that asset when they have a history of not paying.

The risk justifies the rate, and the necessity of the reality of needing a car for most people justifies that risk and rate being a requirement for the asset. It's shady to go to the "We lend to everyone!" used auto lots, but they're a necessity because people in the US typically need cars to find better employment.

And yet we have no problems as a society giving people with poor or no credit a hundred thousand dollar loan for an english degree

poor people just want a kia rio from this decade with low milage without paying 20% interest
 
For people that are really poor, trains are still an expensive ask unfortunately. I pay $150 per month for the privilege of not driving to work everyday.

I cheap enough car (without predatory lending) can be had just as cheap, not accounting for fuel costs.
 
The problem is we don't know if a fair car loan is something they can't afford. My parents had poor credit growing up and were forced into a car loan for a used car with high milage at 350+ a month. That kind of premium, in combination with a random repair needed to pass a state inspection...if it had been a low milage car fairly priced with student loan interest rates it would have definitely been affordable, and it's the same for many families.

Like student loans you wouldn't be able to burn this off via bankruptcy so it's one fair chance at it.

A major difference between a used car and a college degree is that a college degree is typically a community investment (e.g., state, local, or federal) that will pay off as an asset for the lender (e.g., the government). It's easy to justify funding for education because the more educated workforce, the more productive workforce long term, the more return on that investment on top of the initial terms for the government backing the loan.

A used car, though, has a set period of return (10, 15 years at the most and that's stretching it?) and while there is a return on productivity (sales tax, gas tax, likely higher consumer output enabled by the car), the return is much lower long-term and it's a depreciating asset.

And yet we have no problems as a society giving people with poor or no credit a hundred thousand dollar loan for an english degree

poor people just want a kia rio from this decade with low milage without paying 20% interest

If you're equivocating between an education at NYU, MIT, or Boston University and a Kia Rio, it's a false equivalency. But even if you want to equivocate between that, it would seem that you're trying to justify with something negative... E.g., that giving a poor person with no credit $100,000 loan for an ENglish degree is a bad thing, therefore, we should justify something else because this bad thing exists.

That's a lousy argument.
 
Seems like the problem in the US is also trying to force everyone to buy a car. Short commute? Get a cheap bike. 10 minutes with a car? Get one of these for a few hundred:



Lending practices like this need to be illegal. But the culture around everyone needing a car needs to change also with better infrastructure for alternatives. There is no reason a 10 minute car ride needs to be 2 hours on a bus and train. At that point, you can walk faster.

Did you miss the part where she has several children and she has to get them ready for school and daycare while she does her own morning routine? Can't really schlep a bunch of kids to and from where they need to go on a moped. Plus doctors visits, school stuff (if she has insurance and time for extracurriculars given her presumably low income) and grocery shopping. Now your moped idea comes off as yet another tax on the poor, because it's only a viable alternative in one specific instance - going to work alone. Now she's paying a note (plus fuel and maintenance) on a moped that she can't use while she has to do her other errands.
 
Thank God I have decent credit and can get a reputable bank...will be financing a new car soon (looking at a Ford Edge)

A good thing to do is become friends with someone who works at a dealership, or better yet, have family. My cousin is the sales manager of a local Ford dealer, so I can usually buy cars at cost.
 
A major difference between a used car and a college degree is that a college degree is typically a community investment (e.g., state, local, or federal) that will pay off as an asset for the lender (e.g., the government). It's easy to justify funding for education because the more educated workforce, the more productive workforce long term, the more return on that investment on top of the initial terms for the government backing the loan.

A used car, though, has a set period of return (10, 15 years at the most and that's stretching it?) and while there is a return on productivity (sales tax, gas tax, likely higher consumer output enabled by the car), the return is much lower long-term and it's a depreciating asset.



If you're equivocating between an education at NYU, MIT, or Boston University and a Kia Rio, it's a false equivalency.


In regards to the benefit of society as a whole, oppressive and predatory programs targeting the poor is an easy case for an increase in crime and general fukkery to begin with. Lets not kid ourselves here--transportation aside from most big cities is a must for Americans to get to work and put food on the table just as much as achieving an education to do the same.

This business results in more shit cars being driven on the roads leading to more broken window'd policing, more poor moms in jail over suspended licenses because of building tickets because she was forced to buy a lemon and still pay more per month for a rio than the guy with the mercedes. These programs are one of the LARGEST problems in regards to circular problems building consistent pressure on the lower class.
 
These should be outlawed.

Really upset that Buffet is involved, but he's a bit of crook in certain aspects.

I live in Omaha, and I'm personally not a big fan of the guy. He had this kindly grandfather reputation, but he's definitely not looking out for the little guy.
 
The public transportation debate aside, I'm conflicted on bad auto loans for people with horrible credit histories. Aside from whether more spending should or shouldn't be spent on public transportation, the reality is that for many people who are out of work or under employed, the only vehicle for better employment is, pun-intended, their car. To do that, it means that the lender (in this case, the shady used car lot) is taking a high risk by lending to someone who has a history of not paying their bills/loans, and so the rates are very high. The buyer has a known risk (usually, except if there are variable rate auto loans), a set payment each month that they have to pay for a depreciating asset, but the car lender has an unknown risk, providing an asset to somebody in exchange for the promise that they will pay for that asset when they have a history of not paying.

The risk justifies the rate, and the necessity of the reality of needing a car for most people justifies that risk and rate being a requirement for the asset. It's shady to go to the "We lend to everyone!" used auto lots, but they're a necessity because people in the US typically need cars to find better employment.

The main Issue is when they set you up for a loan on a car that has problems, if a car breaks down 3 months after you bought it you are screwed.

And the part where the same car gets sold over and over is a very common thing.
 
I had to fight for me 1.9% interest on my new car a few years ago. But I was going to walk if they kept coming back with 4% or so. I use my credit score as a weapon.
 
I had to fight for me 1.9% interest on my new car a few years ago. But I was going to walk if they kept coming back with 4% or so. I use my credit score as a weapon.

These places rarely touch with the customer the interest rate, once the customer hear that he would only have to pay 200 bucks a month they forget anything else about the loan.
 
what is the interest rate on these loans? I just did a loan through my bank on a new Honda Fit. 1.99% interest rate over 5 years. Almost doesn't even seem like it's worth it for the bank, they are making so little over a 5 year span.

edit: just got to the part in the video... up to 29% sheesh.
When I first moved to the US I obviously had no credit history. I called a car dealership to see about buying a car, they were very helpful, came and picked me up and drove me out to the lot. Test drove a compact car, they started putting together a finance package, kept showing the monthly cost but not disclosing the interest. I kept pushing and eventually they told me - 35%. I decided not to buy the car and they refused to drive me back so I had to walk 15 minutes in 90 weather. Eventually found a deal through CarMax at 12% interest, still high, but not ridiculous.
 
Am I the only one who's distracted by the fact nobody seemed concerned at the mother leaving her 9-month-old baby unattended in the car in the first place?
 
Still think a big help is moving to to Tesla direct sales model.

Sure it doesn't help with banks giving out bad loans, but it does mean people wouldn't be getting as fucked on pricing.
 
These places rarely touch with the customer the interest rate, once the customer hear that he would only have to pay 200 bucks a month they forget anything else about the loan.

No doubt. They ask you how much a month can you pay and then go from there. My brother got screwed by a place like this before. They even had it in the contract that if you sell the car early, they still get to collect future interest on it WITH a penalty on top of that.

So if it was sold 2 years into a 6 year contract, you would owe then the other 4 years of interest and a penalty on top of that.

So much in our society can be helped if we teach people, especially high schoolers and college kids, how to navigate the system. Its predatory capitalism that doesn't care if life is in play.
 
Am I the only one who's distracted by the fact nobody seemed concerned at the mother leaving her 9-month-old baby unattended in the car in the first place?

I mean yeah, a mom shouldnt do that, but the fact that the repo Company took the car like that shows how litle regard these companies have on what they do to people. Repo companies and BHPH dealers are made for each other, they are both scummy in their bussiness.

No doubt. They ask you how much a month can you pay and then go from there. My brother got screwed by a place like this before. They even had it in the contract that if you sell the car early, they still get to collect future interest on it WITH a penalty on top of that.

So if it was sold 2 years into a 6 year contract, you would owe then the other 4 years of interest and a penalty on top of that.

So much in our society can be helped if we teach people, especially high schoolers and college kids, how to navigate the system. Its predatory capitalism that doesn't care if life is in play.

shit ...that one is fucked up.
 
The actual answer here is improving public transportation, but I guess that's not the sexy answer.

The US is boned when it comes to public transit. Our infrastructure and is built for car travel unless you live and work in a large city. Even then, it can be a nightmare to get around.
 
Agreed. I'm
unfortunately
living in Brampton now, and need to commute to Bolton every day for work. which is impossible by transit as there is only one bus service that even goes up there in sporadic intervals.

I'm actually in the process of buying a car now. It's costs me 26 bucks one way with uber every day to go up there, and I have to usually ask for a ride back if I'm in lucky. But looking at my insurance rates, I'm looking to pay 500+ bucks a month just in insurance.

I'm fortunate enough to have options to finance, but Brampton is being built in a way that doesn't help the job situation. All the jobs are outside of the city because our city council prioritizes building subdivisions and homes over industrial/work space. It feels like everyone that lives in Brampton have to go outside of Brampton for work, which adds to the traffic snarl. I firmly believe better city planning would help the transit situation, but we are stuck on our current path now.

Brampton brother!

As for travelling to Bolton, isn't it better than travelling south on that fucking 410?

And Woah, where is that 500 insurance coming from? I'm guessing you are a new driver or something? Because I pay 150 a month.
 
Lending practices like this need to be illegal. But the culture around everyone needing a car needs to change also with better infrastructure for alternatives. There is no reason a 10 minute car ride needs to be 2 hours on a bus and train. At that point, you can walk faster.

With public transportation, even if you get lucky and the route you're taking is the exact same route as the bus/train/whatever, it's going to take somewhere between double and triple the time it would normally take by car just because of the stops. Most of the time you don't get that lucky, though, and the trip takes even longer because you have to go in directions that don't go directly to where you're going first, wasting time (i.e. you have to take the bus that goes north first, and then catch the bus that goes east).

And as other people have already mentioned, a highway would make that car travel time much shorter as well.
 
Brampton brother!

As for travelling to Bolton, isn't it better than travelling south on that fucking 410?

And Woah, where is that 500 insurance coming from? I'm guessing you are a new driver or something? Because I pay 150 a month.

I've been driving about 5 years now and most companies quoted me 400+ a month. 2007 car that I own fully.

One of them quoted me around 200 but I had to drive with a thing that tracked my driving for a while. No big deal because I stay off highways and drive carefully, but still.

Etobicoke was just as bad for insurance. I really miss the $90 a month I was paying in Sudbury, even as a new driver...
 
shit ...that one is fucked up.

To make things worse, he was in the navy at the time. Shady dealerships set up around military bases and pray on people too. Its a sad state of morality the country has all around. If you can trick someone into signing their life away, its all fair game apparently.
 
Once there's a fleet of autonomous taxis, many people will be buying a monthly packet of miles/minutes similar to phones.

At that point, you can subsidize those on public aid with a card containing a certain allotment of miles/minutes based on financial need.
 
No doubt. They ask you how much a month can you pay and then go from there. My brother got screwed by a place like this before. They even had it in the contract that if you sell the car early, they still get to collect future interest on it WITH a penalty on top of that.

So if it was sold 2 years into a 6 year contract, you would owe then the other 4 years of interest and a penalty on top of that.

So much in our society can be helped if we teach people, especially high schoolers and college kids, how to navigate the system. Its predatory capitalism that doesn't care if life is in play.

A more effective and simple solution would be to ban those types of contracts.
 
Seems like the problem in the US is also trying to force everyone to buy a car. Short commute? Get a cheap bike. 10 minutes with a car? Get one of these for a few hundred:



Lending practices like this need to be illegal. But the culture around everyone needing a car needs to change also with better infrastructure for alternatives. There is no reason a 10 minute car ride needs to be 2 hours on a bus and train. At that point, you can walk faster.


Ok, but what happens when you live in a food desert and need to buy groceries for yourself and potentially other family members?
 
Wow, that was really helping me justify my decision to not own a car. Using a bike + adequate public bus system is really paying off.
 
Hopefully as we move more towards Tesla like cars in the future it helps.

Getting away from the current combustion engine means a lot less car troubles for the average Joe.

Plus direct sales if that can ever take off and get the car dealership mafia to gtfo lender's would have an easier time knowing their client is getting a good price.

You also wouldn't have stealerships fucking with this pricing cause they try and do it on a month to month payment and have you take a loan through them.
 
This makes me glad that my city's got half decent public transport. People bitch about it all the time and there's lots of room for improvement but it still seems a lot better than what's shown in this video.
 
Here's the thing. Public transit is usually cheap.

Uber usually isn't. At least not to the extent that you'd have to literally use it every day to get to work and back.
Depends on where you live. In Los Angeles or SF, Uber is getting to the point that in a lot of cases, it's only a couple extra bucks more than the cost of public transportation, and well worth it considering how much time you save and the convenience.

On top of that, it seems to be getting cheaper. Especially pool.
 
Hopefully as we move more towards Tesla like cars in the future it helps.

Getting away from the current combustion engine means a lot less car troubles for the average Joe.

Plus direct sales if that can ever take off and get the car dealership mafia to gtfo lender's would have an easier time knowing their client is getting a good price.

You also wouldn't have stealerships fucking with this pricing cause they try and do it on a month to month payment and have you take a loan through them.
These types of places aren't lending new cars, you realize that right?
They're lending 12-15 year old cars and I'm not sure that a 12 year old electric car's batteries wouldn't hold up over such a long time which means you've got to replace them which is expensive.

I'm just not sure that your solution solves the sort of problems that this video is talking about.
 
These types of places aren't lending new cars, you realize that right?
They're lending 12-15 year old cars and I'm not sure that a 12 year old electric car's batteries wouldn't hold up over such a long time which means you've got to replace them which is expensive.

I'm just not sure that your solution solves the sort of problems that this video is talking about.

Sure you have to swap batteries, but eventually you get to where even used cars are battery driven.

As expensive as batteries can be you'd still dodge having to have all of the other engine and transmission issues that tend to happen on cars when they hit the 100,000 mile mark. Spark plugs, timing belts, and other assorted shit would be a thing of the past.

You'd also have less issue with people who either dont know, can't afford, try to stretch, or just say fuck it and don't get routine maintenance done now. You wouldn't have people driving cars that haven't had an oil change when it needed one 5k miles ago.

There are soooo many fucking parts on an ICE vehicle it's insane.
 
I watched the piece and appreciate the accurate journalism in the guise of comedy. John and Co. did a good job showing what is a morally repugnant practice that only exists to fleece the poorest and least able among us.

It's deplorable what some of these shady BHPH dealerships will sign folks up for but it is just as sad that their are folks out there who will take those deals at all.

Much better financial education training in our public schools would help but a poor educated person is still going to end up needing a car just as badly as a poor uneducated person so the end result might not be that different.
 
One thing getting lost here with all the transportation talk is predatory sub prime loans. These types of loans should be regulated. This is costing society more money to help the poor. Having people forced into bankruptcy and then targeted again to be victimised continues an endless cycle of poverty.
 
Nah, pretty sexy tbh.

7c5cf00c7.gif

WTF is that?
 
Seems like the problem in the US is also trying to force everyone to buy a car. Short commute? Get a cheap bike. 10 minutes with a car? Get one of these for a few hundred:



Lending practices like this need to be illegal. But the culture around everyone needing a car needs to change also with better infrastructure for alternatives. There is no reason a 10 minute car ride needs to be 2 hours on a bus and train. At that point, you can walk faster.

These are not at all reasonable options for most Americans, particularly a bike. Most commute distances are not bike-friendly, and weather is a serious factor in much of the US. You can't bike everywhere when several months out of the year it's freezing with ice and/or snow on the ground.

The US needs better public transit, short-distance and long-distance, end of fucking story. But we're so far up the automobile/fuel-industry's ass that it'll probably be a very long time before we see the light.
 
Bikes and scooters are impractical in any area where highways represent the major traffic outlet or where winter lasts for 6 months or more (like western NY).

What we really REALLY need is to kill off suburbia and burn down all of these slowly dying rust belt cities so we can concentrate people in cities more efficiently and build better transportation options there.

Not everyone wants to live in a big city bro.
 
Selling cars like this is fine. If I'm selling a multi year note to a risky person you can damn well bet I'm pricing risk into that note.

Selling derivatives based on these loans without oversight is a bit scary; especially when big names start to get involved.
 
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