Comment by kulahan

Brother, people are scraping by right now. Auto loan defaults are nearing all-time highs. Car loan lengths are longer than ever. The average age of a vehicle on the road is something like 14 years old now.

I promise you with all my heart, those luxobarges are not being purchased because they’re practical in any way, shape, or form. It’s 110% virtue signaling.

I don’t get the recent internet trend of trying to excuse any bad behavior by saying it’s all actually very logical and simply a tragedy of reality. Nobody is buying a gigantic vehicle because it has seats that are easy to clean. Nobody is buying an expensive ride because they just NEED those auto rain wipers.

People are bad with money, and keeping up with the Joneses has always been a high priority in American culture. I see people making $20-25/hr driving brand new Cadillac SUVs. I talk to my car selling friends, and they have the loan rates for 6-10 years memorized, not 3-5 years. Nobody does those anymore.

Of course there is an enormous amount of virtue signaling around cars. It’s one of the strongest social signals people purchase.