Posted on 10/11/2025 8:26:08 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
The alarms aren’t just blinking anymore. They’re blaring. America’s debt-fueled consumer economy is starting to crack. Families who used to keep the stores and car dealers busy are now falling behind on payments. This isn’t some slow leak. It looks and feels like the early days of 2008, only deeper and faster. Car loans are a disaster. Credit cards are choking people. Home loans are sliding into trouble. Even those Buy Now Pay Later apps, sold as a way to “manage money,” are pulling people into digital debt traps. The question isn’t if the hit is coming. It’s how long the people in charge can pretend it isn’t happening.
Auto loan debt just blew past $1.66 trillion. The Consumer Federation of America says defaults, delinquencies and repossessions are “approaching levels not seen since just before the Great Recession.” https://www.carscoops.com/2025/09/auto-loan-delinquencies-are-off-the-dial-and-even-prime-borrowers-are-struggling/
“Auto finance is at a breaking point… Subprime delinquency is worse than in the 2008 financial crisis.”
Even good-credit borrowers are slipping. Cox Automotive says people with above-average scores are now twice as likely to miss payments as before the pandemic. Repossession rates jumped 43% from 2022 to 2024. One in four trade-ins is now underwater.
Credit card debt is on the same path. The New York Fed says balances hit $1.21 trillion in Q2 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/05/ny-fed-credit-card-debt-second-quarter-2025.html
“We are still seeing elevated delinquency rates for credit cards,” with 6.93% moving into delinquency over the last year.
The St. Louis Fed backs it up with a 3.05% delinquency rate across all commercial banks. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRCCLACBS
Continues at link.
"Buy Now Pay Later apps are turning into the most dangerous kind of credit. LendingTree found 40% of users missed a payment last year, and one in four now uses it for groceries."
https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/buy-now-pay-later-services-dangerous-trap-young-americans-financial-expert-warns
$1.6 trillion for auto loan debt.
Take the bus.
So are we STILL ‘recovering’ from CovidBS-19? Did Brandon really do THIS much damage to our economy? Are we just starting to feel the repercussions of unbridled Government Spending over the past 50+ years?
I’m going to say YES to all of the above.
Curious as to how our FReepers are handling household financial aspects these days...
Brandon’s 4 years as president really helped wreck this nation in so many ways. Inflation. Open borders giving away $$$$, cars, housing to illegals. Illegals taking jobs.
God help us.
That’s insanity. I have never financed a car for more than 30 days or so, just to keep my name in the game for credit report purposes.
But, I also hear used cars/trucks are at a premium, too.
I’d rather owe it to you than cheat you out of it.
Posted #4 before reading your post.
I should have added Brandon’s pandemic shutdown to my list of his damage to this country.
I retired four years ago at 67. My retirement plan was not to have a lot of money saved up. Rather, it was to move to a low cost of living part of the country, own my own home and have zero debt. That is exactly where I find myself now. But with a plus. I ended up with 32 acres, 25 of it wooded and the rest three beautiful lawns. And the annual property taxes are less than $250. It means my cost of living is less than half our SS checks.
And we pay zero income tax.
And those 25 acres of woods have tens of thousands of dollars of timber on them, and it’s always growing.
See my post above this one.
The value of used cars is falling. LOTS of stuff is getting repossessed. There’s a glut.
Meanwhile consumer spending is going up, how can it be?!
People who don’t understand simple mathematics go broke while others prosper, all under the same system. Our miseducation system has helped ruin a lot of lives, as has advertising. I got to see the details of a lot of people’s financial lives in my work. Credit cards and overspending on autos are the two most dangerous things to wealth building for the middle class, with “toys” right behind those.
Totally agree with the proposition.
We're a little like cuban leaf's tale earlier in this thread. No debt on two homes, multiple assets and accounts, and doing quite fine. A neighbor down the street got all those "shiny new toys" and now is finding "financing" means debt service and debt service and debt service. ( He's a liberal. )
Send people free money while making it a crime for people who, you know, make stuff to go to work. That couldn’t possibly be inflationary! 🙄
Yes, we worked a similar plan. Its taken us 2 years to remodel our house on our own so we can sell and move to our mortgage free 5.5 acres in rural N GA. We’re building a small but new home on that property out of pocket. As soon as our house in Atlanta is sold in the next few months we’ll be totally debt free.
Some scary statistics in this report!
Lev_25:54 If any Israelites have not been bought back by the time the Year of Jubilee arrives, they and their children must be set free at that time.
In fact it is a point of freedom for many.
I was in Mongolia after the demise of USSR. They were excited about the future, it was like the new frontier, all the old rules were gone and they had freedom. They were rediscovering the past which in their case was Genghis Kahn and Buddhism. What will we rediscover of our past.
It will be a bumpy exciting ride.......................
Using debt to acquire things that appreciate can be very good (homes, rentals, raw land). Debt on things that depreciate, very bad. The funny part is how the old things like buying reasonable vehicles and keeping them instead of trading luxury cars every few years stays with us long after they don’t matter anymore.
I paid cash for the last one-used. The seller wanted me to finance it with them for the interest money.
Look at all the BMW’s out there. A new key alone costs $500. Perhaps those owners feel more strong and sexy driving them and it’s worth the extra money they’re pissin’ away.
Then look at the BMW’s on the road like fish swimming in the ocean. If you look at it from the side(the shape) you can see the snout of a shark. Compared to the others it makes one feel stronger than the others. It’s marketing-finding an excuse to spend more money.
Those phone apps...”You can get up to $500 as soon as the same business day!”...electronic forms of title loans, payday loans and you don’t even have to leave your sofa...until it’s repossessed for non-payment.
Not everyone lives where bus services are available.
Fabulous, way to go! If people would just look at their debt payments and imagine all those payments going into things that appreciate instead of depreciate they'd have much better lives.
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