The timing couldn't be worse for American families. 
    Total household debt has hit a record $18.39 trillion,
    and Americans now spend about 11% of their income
    just on debt payments

In 2018 our household started to exit a decade of hard poverty. FF to now and we have some savings and no debt. The other natural outcome of saving-to-buy (now that we can afford to do that) was zero credit ratings for the 6 of us.

Archive link doesn’t work for Barron’s.

For anyone not yet in the know apparently a subprime auto loan company suddenly went bankrupt early last month amid accusations of fraud

Alt link with related news: https://moneywise.com/loans/auto-loans/tricolor-subprime-aut...