[autoexec]

This goes way beyond the high price of cars or people taking out loans with bad terms.

Americans are struggling all over. Rent is skyrocketing. Inflation is applying massive pressure on regular expenses. Household debt is at an all time high. People all over the country are struggling to keep their utilities connected as energy prices soar. Foreclosures are surging. Individual chapter 7 bankruptcy filings are up 15% from last year too. It's really no wonder repossessions are spiking too.

Economically, things look pretty bleak for a huge percentage of Americans and I'm not seeing much to convince me that they're going to get better any time soon.

[chneu]

And yet Americans are door dashing more than ever and financing everything imaginable.

Not saying citizens deserve this but we eagerly gobble up every excuse possible and then complain that our lifestyles aren't sustainable.

The typical American lifestyle is based around excess. It's no surprise that a nation who spends 3x more on unnecessary garbage than any other nation is struggling financially as climate change makes that excess more expensive.

We do this to ourselves with our pride/ego fixation and our endless excuses for why someone else should fix things or someone else is responsible for it.

We don't vote. We don't think critically. We don't do the hard work to benefit our society long term. We buy into every possible excuse.

[autoexec]

I think it has more to do with stagnating wages which haven't kept up with inflation (or for that matter productivity) than it does with irresponsible spending. The growing number of people who can barely keep the lights on aren't spending all their income on door dash. They're cutting back on groceries, going to food banks (who have seen record demand) and being forced to resort to Buy Now Pay Later loans for regular groceries (14% more than they were last year https://www.cbsnews.com/news/buy-now-pay-later-bnpl-loans-gr...)