Here’s the latest reader question, along with my reply!
Dan asks: I just read your column on the state of the used car market and have a question. Do you think it’s foolish to buy a new car – entirely on credit – on the assumption that the economy (the country) is going to collapse after the election and then just drive the thing until it’s repo’d? I mean, what have we got to lose at this point? I’m thinking this way because I don’t want to use up what cash I have on a car when I could use it to buy other, more important things. But I do need a car because my current one is about rusted out.
My reply: When someone picks up the board and throws the pieces all over, the rules of the game no longer apply. Ordinarily, I’d take the position that buying anything on credit – and assuming debt – is a very bad idea. You’re in hock to some entity, which now has a leash around your neck. Having to come up with the funds to make those payments makes you dependent on whatever job you’ve got and today that can mean having to submit to degradations such as the Face Diapering of your face. If you fail to keep up with your debt, it means you get hounded by debt collectors and blackballed by credit reporting agencies, which can make it very difficult to get a job, even, as many employers do a credit check as part of their vetting process.
But these are not ordinary times. The whole thing is coming unglued. Accordingly, it might be very sly to husband your cash – or spend it on the things you really need, while you can still get them – and let credit finance your wheels.
You may even end up with a free car, if the whole thing completely unravels. And if it does, the very last thing that will matter is your credit rating.
. . .
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Is it me, or am I starting to smell swamp? Sheesh, look, ya got a lawyer trying to tell us that Jesus approves of cheating our creditors! (If ya don’t like creditors, don’t be indebted to them! Use other people’s money and assets for free and then complain about the crookedness of bankers and crony-capitalists? You guys are losing it!).
Pay cash for what you buy, and let it be yours!
in my life ive learned debt is a cancer
Amen, Mark!
I have managed to maintain an unbelievable amount of freedom throughout my life, largely because I’ve always scrupulously avoided debt- which, may have meant sleeping on the floor at one point for 8 years (I like sleeping on the floor, anyway) and driving a $125 car…..but what I had was 100% mine- and I was able to SAVE money, which got me where I am now (THREE bedrooms…free and clear).
“Interest”, along with propaganda which seeks to encourage our covetous natures have long been the number-one tool of the Cabal- and have probably accomplished more to further their agendas than all of the wars, political control, and social engineering combined!
Morning, Nunz!
Paying for what you buy is of course the honorable thing to do. But given the unprecedented circumstances – specifically, the grotesque pillaging of the self-employed/small freeholder by these corporate-government entities- I don’t have the same ire for those who screw back, so to speak, as I would for anyone who treated dishonestly with an actual human being. Sometimes, I think I’m an idiot for not maxxing out my credit cards – to buy all the supplies I will probably badly need in the near future – and then flap my wings like a duck when they ask me to pay for them!
Hi Ya Eric!
I do know what you mean, and I can’t say that the same thoughts haven’t occurred to moi. But the idea of actually doing it….. We’d then be just as bad as they are. We’d be the very thing we abhor. And on a practical level, we’d be playing their game, and that game is engineered so that we lose.
This reminds me of a woman whose ad I responded to on Gregs[sic]list years ago, who was selling a car. She was a Tea Party-er, and somehow I ended up on her mailing list. She was advocating that people not pay their credit card balances, and that they buy everything from here on out on credit and not pay…..’cause SHTF. That was c. 12 years ago. I wonder how THAT worked out for all those who practiced it!
Meanwhile, you and I are still debt-free….still free, and still own what we own. I’ll bet those Tea Partiers who didn’t pay their bills are still trying to recover to this day. And really, aren’t they just as abhorrent as the soy-boys who are demanding “free” healthcare and “free” college tuition, etc.? -or the welfare queen with 9 babies? They all; want something for nothing- reasoning that just because the system is desperately corrupt, that it’s O-K to participate.
In other news: I was wondering if special-ed teachers mark late students as tardy? 🙂
Well-said, Nunz… I would never, either. But I’d by lyin’ if I said I hadn’t thought about it 😉
Absolutely not a silly question. It’s called “planning” you are guessing what the future will bring. I am a lawyer, my primary practice area is bankruptcy. If you are insolvent, it is important to best utilize your options. Pay first for what your need to to survive. Talk to a consumer bankruptcy attorney about the rest. Do not use your retirement to pay creditors. Do not use whatever equity you have in your home to pay creditors. If you have income it needs to be protected. It is a business decision. People feel bad about not being able to pay debts. Jesus had the better idea. Scourge the money lenders from the temple. 100 years ago the length of the average mortgage was 7 years. Now it’s pushing 40, who does that benefit?