whatever happened to affordable fast boats?

[Instigator]

I used to laugh at the idiotic ads for the dealers, including, “we will pay off your trade”.

I thought, who is stupid (gullible?) enough to believe that?
That was as a young adult.
50 yrs later, they run the same ad!

I told that lot boy that when I got my first auto loan, at 17 yrs old, I needed 10% down, my mom to co-sign and a wk for the bank to approve!

Now I can walk in w/no money and drive out in a $60k+ car an hr later w/no job and now down payment!

When I moved to Fla the first time, ‘04, I was a self employed, outside salesman which banks hate loaning to but needed a mortgage for my new place in the Cape.

My loan officer told me he’d get me approved through the governments new “no document loans”.
I didn’t even need to prove I had an income and got a $130k mortgage!

What could possibly go wrong!

Then they did the interest only loans and the reverse mortgages that let you cash out on your equity!

Then came the crash.

To drive it home, we had a family friend who’s dad lost his house after cashing out his principal.
The friend placed all blame on the bank for doing the loan for his dad.

Of course nothing is our fault so…

A young lad at work still owed on his car but wanted a truck real bad. One day he found the truck that he's been looking for.
A three year old Colorado 4X4 with a diesel engine. Nice truck but when I did the math on how much he really paid for, he was in disbelieve. He financed the whole truck plus still had 5 more payments left on his car. His now $35,000 used truck will cost him $62,000 by the time he's done paying for it and will be a 10 year old truck by then.