For default car owners, repo man like the Grim Reaper

The amounts on the Maxima loan can't be correct. 24 monthly payments at $257 is $6168. That's way more than the $1000 difference between the car price and the down payment.

They are everywhere. She probably had bad credit and this was the price she had to pay. Making money off poor people is a good business to sharks.

Sounds like a very nice repo man. I like this guy.... come and get it!

harley john wrote:

Thank you again George Bush , for another job well done

Sure, blame everyone but the person who took on more debt than he could handle.

The pity of it is if she could have waited 4 more months at the payment she signed up for she would have had the whole $3500 she needed for the car.

welcome to the future of America, peoples.

The whole Bush "plan" for the economy has been spending beyond one's means (both consumer and the govt.).

And the tax rebate checks are just more $$ being borrowed from overseas creditors - saddling the younger generation w/ huge debt payments.

expounding on CPA's comment, the Trib editors prove yet again why they will be riding on Ms. Jones "short bus"

Wow, the mod deleted my benign post? It certainly wasn't offensive.
Guess someone sat on a stick.

"The amounts on the Maxima loan can't be correct ..." "Making money off poor people is a good business to sharks"
All of this may be true, but, the numbers still don't add up: to get > $6000. from a $1000. loan in 24 months requires over 300%(three hundred percent) APR.
Anything's possible, but, Occam's Razor says that either the "boo-hoo" single mommy hairdresser didn't remember the figures, or, the reporter didn't quite understand what she said.
And, the reporter (and editor) then probably didn't notice that the number was preposterous, and so we now find it (sans explanation) in print.

Unable to afford vehicle payments, insurance, gas, etc? Had no business buying vehicle then! Now did you? Vehicle Owners, which CAN afford the above end-up paying. Real, tired of paying for meatheads, who can't think ahead 2 minutes.

Reality,

It's more than just people who are living beyond their means. Gas is 25% more a gallon than it was a year ago. Food is 25% more that it was a year ago. Gas in October was 2.88 per gallon, now its 4.40 a gallon and is still going up! a 40 mile round trip commute is now costing $60 more a month. With the added costs of more expensive food, electricity and heat, people are having a tough time making ends meet.

csg wrote:

The pity of it is if she could have waited 4 more months at the payment she signed up for she would have had the whole $3500 she needed for the car.

Seriously! What was she thinking???

Did the reporter actually do any math on this loan? If the numbers were correct, the interest rate is several 100 percent.

sharks wrote:

They are everywhere. She probably had bad credit and this was the price she had to pay. Making money off poor people is a good business to sharks.

Blame game again. It isn't poor people. First poor people can't get CAR LOANS. It is the working class and whites. Everyone. They don't give loans to poor people. GM or nobody else. Come on now. This bad economy is affecting the middle class. The poor were always poor. Poor people didn't buy homes, no body would give them a loan. Rome my dear, fell from immigration and history does repeat.

Reality wrote:

Unable to afford vehicle payments, insurance, gas, etc? Had no business buying vehicle then! Now did you? Vehicle Owners, which CAN afford the above end-up paying. Real, tired of paying for meatheads, who can't think ahead 2 minutes.

I agree to a point, same as housing. Push those housing prices up and people bought what they couldn't afford. But who superinflated the housing market and why. First, Mayor Daley started it with the push to get blacks out and whites in and pushed the housing prices up. Started with Bronzeville. Made it unaffordable for the poor and then look what happened. We have to understand... jobs are going, going and gone. They don't have jobs anymore and can't afford it anymore. The jobs now are given to Hispanics. Immigration just raiden a meat packing house and what 300 illegal immigrants had those jobs. Don't you think 300 LEGAL americans could have gotten those jobs first and maybe they could have made a car payment. Kids use to be able to get jobs at McDonald or other places. It kept them occupied and crime down, but now Hispanics have those jobs. It's a shame. Yes we can blame them for over extending themselves, but that's what Americans have always done.. live beyond their means. Plastic. It just caught up with them now. Now we see how the poor feel. A job brings you out of poverty. But they were never hired and were tossed aside for Hispanics. Guess what all the money the Hispanics make here is going to Mexico. Their market is booming. Their pesos is worth more than our money. Hispanics put nothing back into the economy, but they are getting welfare, social security benefits and ruining our hospitals to bankruptcy. And everyone blames us for buying what we couldn't afford. We could afford it before the jobs ran out.
Now our economic stimulus check.
If you spend it at Walmart...it's going to China..
If you spend it for a computer..it's going to India...
If you buy vegetables... it's going to Mexico..
aS AMERICANS we sit back and never say anything and allow stuff to happen and then we want to point a finger at each other when it does. Isn't this the end result of our own greed, racism and selfishness. Now none of us have anything. We are all losing everything and we are still blaming each other. But wasn't it the American way that lured us into these cars.