You really think the people living on $18,000 are buying $110,000 trucks and $80,000 SUVs? I think you have a warped perspective on the average working class person, and what they have. Look up what the average age of vehicle in service in the US is. Look up the ratio of New: Used cars. The poor aren’t buying new cars, whether that be a Corolla or a F150.
I know they have an insane amount of debt. Also 18k isnt the average, and they dont have to be buying new. US vehicles are becoming increasingly large and theyre not just…spawning out of nothing, people are buying them.
So almost exclusively wealthy people buy new cars, and thus set the trends for desirable features and sizes for manufacturers to make. The rest of the population is forced to play cleanup on the refuse of the wealthy and buy their leftover thrown away vehicles used. Where exactly do regular people have the ability to influence anything there? You could say, buy a smaller car, but they’re already not buying cars at all if they’re really poor, and if they’re moderately poor to even lower middle class, then they’re buying used cars. Neither of those put a single dollar in the pockets of manufacturers, meaning neither of those has ANY influence whatsoever on manufacturers and what they build.
That’s before we get into ways that regulation has made it cheaper, and more profitable, for manufacturers to increase the sizes of their vehicles.
It’s pretty clear you have no theoretical framework or grasp of the systems in place in the US or how they function. I Can recommend some readings if you like, but there is a knowledge gap that you will need to bridge if you hope to ever have meaningful discussions around economics and political economy. Not even the neoliberal economists who implemented “personal responsibility” optics believe in them, as evidenced by their actions and academic works.
