John Oliver Takes on the Predatory World of Subprime Car Loans

“If the phrase a ‘boom in subprime loans’ is making your eye twitch with flashbacks to the mortgage crisis, just wait—we’ll get there.”


On Sunday, John Oliver took on the shady world of subprime auto lenders, an industry that too often tricks vulnerable people into paying far more for a used car than it’s actually worth. As the Last Week Tonight host explained, predatory loans are just “one of the many ways that when you are poor, everything can be more expensive,” with lenders’ practices driving borrowers into inescapable debt and bankruptcy.

It’s also an industry, unburdened by alarmingly lax rules, that closely resembles the 2008 financial crisis. For more on subprime car loans, head over to our recent in-depth coverage here.

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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