| > 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. |