Ah, so this is really just another way poverty is punished. I can afford to save up $8000 for a second hand car, but people who can't, have to buy more expensive cars on a (predatory?) car loan.
I'm not saying it's intentional, but there are a lot of mechanisms like these that make it more expensive to be poor, creating a vicious cycle of poverty.
> I'm not saying it's intentional, but there are a lot of mechanisms like these that make it more expensive to be poor, creating a vicious cycle of poverty.
You are quite correct, but this is one of those rare cases when "learning things" is enough to uplift one from some of the poverty.
I did not start out rich enough to afford a 6 year old car cash, I started out by saving for a year (sacrificing a lot in other spheres of my life at that age, early 20s) to buy a barely running beater that I then maintained cheaply for the next 5 years.
Cost over five years, including repairs and maintenance was about a tenth of a new car price.
Many who cannot afford the cash $8k for a decent 2nd-hand car can afford the cash $2k for a dodgy barely running car.
The problems they face is being clueless about cars, repairing, etc in general.
IOW, the problem they have is not "not enough cash to own a car", it's "not enough knowledge to fix a car". The only person who can remedy that is themselves, not the market.
Looked at through this lens, this is not a punishment on poverty, it's a punishment on lack of knowledge.
