Hacker News Reader

Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

Why? If you have the principle just invest it yourself and then pay off the loan with an auto payment each month from that same principle.

View on HN

I wonder if anything will shake the idea that the stock market is a one way trip? We are back to 2016 on the NYSE right now.

I mean not all investing has to be some risky thing. Say the car costs $25k. Put $5k in a 1,2,3,4 year CD and pay off each year with what you get from the CD and at the end of the 5 years enjoy the $1.6k you made for basically nothing.

You can take both long and short positions. Although it seems that most people (almost everyone) shouldn't try to get too fancy with this.

Short with the principal on a car?

Here is what needs to happen: the vast majority of people need a steady job that sees them afford a car. They need to not be "financially literate" because the vast majority of options open to them are not financial footguns, and we need a world where playing financial games doesn't make or break a person.

What was it Henry Ford did?

a. gave all his workers a Robinhood account so they could play derivatives and try to afford one of his cars

b. paid his workers enough to buy a car

This is a very US centric view of the world - whose gotten itself into a corner with urban planning centered around cars. People don't need cars, they need mobility and the ability to get around their surroundings efficiently. If we're making up solutions to the world, by all means raise salaries if you can, but I wouldn't center our goals around car ownership. Walk around, ride a bycicle, use public transportation.

Yes they might not need a car if there is public transport.

That wasn't my point. My point was ordinary people shouldn't be looking to hedge the principal of something costing $15k with long/short positions in the stock market.

This is the financialisation of yet another area of western life and it's not smart.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com