I haven’t had much time lately to sit down in front of the TV, let alone turn it on and spend a few minutes watching. I’ve come dangerously close to canceling the cable subscription, actually, but that would mean plunking down $40 for a converter box just to get my Thursday night The Office/30 Rock fix, and that’s a whole ‘nother column.
Sunday, as Syracuse put it’s white coat back on and reminded us all that yes, it is still only February, I settled in for a couple of hours in front of the tube. While I turned interview notes into stories and folded pillow cases and t-shirts, I was reassured by an auto company that if I bought one of their cars now, they would help me out of any financial hardships I might face in coming months. Sort of.
Hyundai is now offering the “Assurance” program - assurance to consumers that if their income is threatened or lost, (for a “limited time”), after purchasing a new car, the company will pay the next three payments. “While you get back on your feet,” the commercial says. If after three months you still can’t make your payments, you can return the car to Hyundai.
“Hey, we know the economy is rough out there, but we’ve got you covered,” the commercial seemed to say as the slick sedan cruised around some countryside.
“Because, we think it’s easier to find a job when you have a car,” the announcer quips.
Never mind that doling out monthly fractions of the small fortune you’ve borrowed to pay for that brand new Hyundai may very likely be the primary reason you have no money to make the payments.
I thought of the past few months ago when several manufacturers stopped leasing their vehicles because it was too risky, and wondered how long it would be before the other big names followed Hyundai’s tire tracks.
Because not being able to afford a new car is, apparently, no reason to not buy a new car.
It wasn’t a good enough reason to not buy a house, either. And that philosophy has worked out so well.
Is it my misunderstanding, or is one of the major reasons we are all in this economic tailspin the fact that so many Americans were willing - and encouraged - to buy more house than they could afford? That may be a simplification, but it is also the truth.
Hey, there’s no better way to prepare yourself for impending financial doom than by stretching what dollars you do have, or have convinced someone else to lend you, to their thinnest.
I think it’s great that a major manufacturer is willing to take into account how wretched things are for consumers. But I don’t know why this special program is being advertized as an legitimate excuse to buy a new car, or why it is a temporary deal and not a common courtesy built into all sales.
Well, I do know why, but that’s not a good enough reason for me.
I understand fully that for us, as a nation, as a planet, to replant our financial feet firmly back on the ground, we need to spend. The worst thing we can do is pull our dollars out of banks and stock markets and bury them in holes out in the backyard. But that doesn’t mean we have to throw them around wildly, either.
This momentary fury went through me, then the Academy Awards came back on, sponsored in part by Hyundai. Just what I needed to take my mind off the state of the world - the chance to watch a bunch of extravagantly rich fair-weather activists, exhausted from their political campaigning last fall, take an evening to honor themselves.
