Much of Western Europe is becoming like former Yugoslavia. You go there on vacation and enjoy every moment of it, but you would certainly not want to live there and subject yourself to the apparitchiks.

Own Nothing And Be Happy? The Car Market Is Showing Us The Future Of Ownership This chart is bigger than cars. It shows what happens when ownership gets so expensive that the only way to keep the payment alive is to stretch the debt into the future. A record 42.6% of underwater car buyers are using 84 month loans. These are buyers who already owe more than the car is worth, rolling negative equity into the next vehicle, then spreading the debt across seven years to make the payment look affordable. The Payment Trap Edmunds’ Q1 2026 data shows more than 3 in 10 trade ins were underwater. The average negative equity trade in carried about $7,183 in unpaid debt. Once rolled into the next car, the average amount financed hit nearly $55,970, and the average monthly payment jumped to a record $932. Even worse, 90.2% of negative equity loans were at least 72 months, and roughly 43% stretched to 84 months. The buyer is financing the old loan, the new vehicle, higher rates, taxes, insurance, repairs, and depreciation at once. Why Vehicles Became So Expensive The average new vehicle price was around $49,275 in March 2026, while average MSRP has been above $50,000 for 12 straight months. The cheap car is disappearing as automakers shift toward trucks, SUVs, higher trims, sensors, batteries, software, safety systems, and globally sourced parts. Add tariffs, insurance inflation, repair inflation, and financing near 6.9%, and the entry point moves out of reach. The average amount financed hit a record $43,899. The average new car payment hit $773. Roughly 20% of buyers now pay $1,000 or more per month. The Delinquency Signal U.S. auto loan debt is around $1.67 trillion. In Q4 2025, 5.2% of outstanding auto debt was at least 90 days delinquent. The Great Financial Crisis peak was 5.3% in Q4 2010. The 30 day transition rate is not yet as bad as 2009, when it reached about 10.9%. This is not a perfect replay of 2008. But seriously delinquent auto debt is already near crisis era levels before a major unemployment shock. Subprime is where the stress is clearest. Fitch auto ABS data showed subprime borrowers 60 plus days late hit 6.9% in January 2026, the highest level in data going back to the early 1990s, before easing to 6.8% in February. In 2008, auto stress was downstream of housing collapse, job losses, and frozen credit. Today, it is driven by affordability. Buyers paid pandemic era prices, financed at high rates, watched depreciation outrun loan amortization, then rolled the shortfall forward. From Ownership To Access You do not need a formal ban on ownership for the ownership economy to disappear. You only need the price of entry to become impossible. That is how the World Economic Forum scenario can become real through market structure rather than decree. If the average car is near $50,000, the payment is $773, insurance is exploding, repairs require specialized parts and software, and the only way to buy is a 7 year loan, then ownership becomes a luxury tier. Fewer people own the asset. More people lease. More people rent access. Transportation becomes a monthly service because owning the asset requires too much capital and balance sheet risk. The 84 month loan is the illusion of affordability stretched across seven years. The payment never ends. Ownership fades. Dependency gets repackaged as convenience.

the only way Tom Lee can save ETH now is by jumping off a bridge with the Bitmine trezor in his pocket