Interesting, I remember a few years back when I bought my car in Australia, there was a car shortage. Which was weird. It was really hard to find certain models

Interesting, I remember a few years back when I bought my car in Australia, there was a car shortage. Which was weird. It was really hard to find certain models of popular brands... One of my motivations for buying a new car at the time was the financing... It was fixed rate for the life of the loan. Which is refreshing in a country like Australia where banks essentially don't do fixed-rate loans for houses (cannot be fixed for more than a couple of years... Not real fixed rate.). Anyway I wonder if maybe it was a similar situation in other countries. Seems like car finance companies were set up for failure in a rising interest rate environment, consumers felt it and responded by buying cars on debt. It seems like a similar thing happened a few years earlier with Silicon Valley Bank except theirs was bonds. I guess the lesson is; don't loan money out at a fixed rate while the currency is being debased into oblivion. The other lesson is that wisdom of the crowds is real. I will never be able to understand how it's possible that pea-brained consumers sometimes seem to have a sixth sense about complex financial macroeconomics. Kind of what happened with Bitcoin as well. Stupid people with incredible gut instinct.