SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Auto loan delinquencies in the fourth quarter hit their highest level since the financial crisis, a report out Thursday revealed.
About $23.27 billion in loans were 30 days or more late as of Dec. 31 — a whopping 14 percent increase from the year earlier and the most since the $23.46 billion in the third quarter of 2008, according to the New York Federal Reserve.
Delinquencies have moved up as the credit quality of the loans has deteriorated and the length of the auto loans has increased — sometimes to 84 months. [...] Delinquencies are the canary in the coal mine when it comes to losses for carmakers.
[...] The average monthly car payment in the fourth quarter rose above $500 for the first time, according to the credit-rating agency Experian.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Saturday February 18 2017, @06:21PM
Those alternatives are much more viable than people think they are, especially the last. Millions of people around the world, in first-world, industrialized countries, serious adults wearing suits and grown-up clothing with real jobs, get to work perfectly fine on bicycles. And, no, it's not a question of poor infrastructure design. In fact, American roads are much more bike-friendly out of the gate than most of the tiny, windy, no-shoulder roads in Europe and Asia that those people bike on.
It's much, much cheaper than even public transportation because you don't have to pay for corrupt ghost-payrolling, cost-overrunning transit agencies with their cozy union payscales and generous retirement packages. You buy the bike once, maybe get a $50 tune-up or a $10 patch kit once in a while if you don't want to maintain the thing yourself, and you're done. You might also find it works so well for exercise that you can cancel your gym membership at Crunch or Bally's, too. You might find your health improving, and that you save money on doctor bills as well. Regular exercise generally does that.
If you live in a hilly place and can't, or don't want to, muscle it up and down, there are electric bike after-market kits that can handle the uphill for you.
Biking, you'll never get caught in a traffic jam. You'll never have to buy an expensive license. You can get soused and still bike home (except in a couple places like Amsterdam where they will ticket you).
The only real hurdle in most cases is not physical, but psychological. If you can get past the need to keep up with the Joneses, you'll gain in all kinds of ways.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 19 2017, @01:30AM
The reason you should NOT get soused and command a vehicle of any sort is your and others life/limb, not the bloody likelyhood of tickets you bourke.