S03.E21: Auto Lending

[Ottis]

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But the whole point of a deceptive pitch is that you hide Y and Z. Sometimes even X. So that people don't realize that are not getting a fair deal. So it's no longer just basic finance. Even if we ignore the whole desperation part of this piece that many people absolutely need a car to work and are basically forced into making what they know is a bad deal there is an element of fraud and deception. Again I've personally seen this.

If Y and Z are actually hidden, I agree that's a problem. Though as a consumer, I wouldn't sign anything until I was sure of Y and Z. It needs to be spelled out, and I've always asked questions to ensure it is (for instance, always ask if there is a prepayment penalty, a small thing that can matter).

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It's not fair to lay blame on people getting scammed. Not everyone can afford a financial advisor to protect them, and lots of people think there's laws, like fraud, protecting them anyway. Not everyone can spend 20 hours online researching everything.

It's very fair. This is basic stuff, not magic. Would you decide to make a fancy dinner dish without first having a recipe? Would you marry someone without talking to them? Basic finance isn't hard. What's hard, and what people fail at, is having the self discipline to 1) bother to understand basic finance (shoot, read an issue of Money magazine), and 2) refuse to overextend themselves and buy more than they can afford, with products like interest-only loans whose payment balloon after a few years. 

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I recently read a very good book about the sub-prime housing crisis, which has a lot in common with the discussion here. And then, just as now, the default position is to blame borrowers for a moral or intelligence failure, while overlooking the bad, even criminal, behavior of lenders. Even judges were reliably on the side of the lenders despite all kinds of egregious evidence that they were incompetent, fraudulent, and law-breaking. Your mortgage has been bought, sold, carved up, retranched without your knowledge or consent? You're being foreclosed by an entity that has no legal claim to your property (or none they can prove, which is the same difference)? Too bad: you're the villain for not paying on time. You're the deadbeat. There's no corresponding slur for the lenders/financial wizards, and there sure ought to be. 

I'd like to see more about specific examples. In any sub-prime loan, the first question is: Did you make your payment? The second question is, was your payment spelled out in the loan documents you signed? If your answers are no, and yes, then any other consideration is irrelevant legally. The fact your mortgaged was "carved up and sold" is irrelevant. Your obligation remains the payment.  Whoever is foreclosing our home, if you made the payment, it wouldn't be happening. This is what I mean by fitting a narrative. It's a simple matter, and it starts with: Did you make your payment, which was spelled out in the loan documents you signed?

Here's an example of something we experienced that could be viewed to fit a narrative: At the start of the subprime mortgage crisis, we had a home equity line of credit. Its balance was a third of its total credit line, and we had had it for two years and never missed a payment. Our lender abruptly froze the HELOC, required us to make payments on the balance and said as soon as it was paid off, the HELOC would be closed. Now, our friend John Oliver could view that as the lender violating the terms of a loan, and if it wasn't a legal violation, it certainly "unfairly" restricted what for us was a source of emergency cash during a financial crisis - even though our loan-to-value ratio was still (just barely) acceptable despite the decline in local home prices (we had a decent safety margin, again - finance).  Banks are evil! Or you could view it as what it was ... a bank trying to reduce its risk by freezing a line of credit, and requiring us to pay our existing balance. Not a surprising move during that time. We had chosen to set up a HELOC, had signed the loan docs and knew that, in a poor economic scenario, this was a possibility (though remote).  Unfortunately for us, it happened. The bank wasn't evil. It was acting rationally. For our part, we paid off the balance within 2 years and took our business to a different bank. That original lender was acquired soon after. We were lucky in that we didn't suffer a worse impact. But the point is, you could view that same set of facts differently, depending on your personal beliefs about how businesses "should" behave. And the truth is, all that matters is what was in what the borrower signed - and has an obligation to understand, or shouldn't sign it.

Edited August 17, 2016 by Ottis

[attica]

46 minutes ago, Ottis said:

The fact your mortgaged was "carved up and sold" is irrelevant. Your obligation remains the payment.  Whoever is foreclosing our home, if you made the payment, it wouldn't be happening.

Because the selling of subprimes among financial institutions was so rampant, transfers of home titles were not handled properly. The volume of paperwork improperly handled was so great, foreclosures were indeed triggered on homes that weren't in arrears, and in some cases, not mortgaged at all. Additionally, some borrowers were advised by their banks to withhold payments in order to qualify for certain re-fi programs, and when they did, they were foreclosed on anyway. This wiki summary is brief, but it's not bad.  There was a passage in the Dayen book, coincidentally enough, wherein a foreclosing bank's attorney made precisely the argument I've pulled from your post in court, when his client was not the legal lienholder of the property in question and couldn't in fact prove the mortgage was in arrears. Because it's a powerful message! Doesn't matter I have no right to have your home! All that matters is I've called you a deadbeat, and I have more lawyers than you! And he won the day in court.

Which, to bring it back around to the show's topic of autolending, in this environment, all the power is in the hands of the lenders, even down to being able to remotely disable your car if some datum somewhere (who knows if it's correct or not, you're not allowed to check) says you've missed a payment. The CFPB was established to level the playing field, and I hope it gets more support and bigger legal teeth to do so.

[SnarkyMcSnarkerson]

On ‎8‎/‎16‎/‎2016 at 7:20 AM, Kel Varnsen said:

The auto loans thing is a tough one. One the one hand weaselly car salesmen suck and selling debt is super shady. But at the same time, if a third of these people default on their loans what kind of rate does the lender have to give to make a profit?

At that point the rate doesn't matter as much, does it? Because the lender will repossess the car and sell it again, getting another loan origination and selling fee and collecting loan payments for a few months until it's repossessed again? And on and on and on. I wonder how much the seller made on that Kia they tracked in the show!

A good book about why people in poverty make bad choices ("Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America" by Linda Tirado) put issues like this in a different perspective for me. As a white woman with middle class privilege, I understood basic finance from a fairly young age because my parents made an effort to teach me about it (school, though....not so much). They also modeled good finance habits for me. Without that, I shudder to think of the financial situation I'd be in today. Add to the lack of financial education the desperation and hopelessness this book finally got me thinking about, and I understand how people fall prey to these scams, and I struggle to put the majority of the blame on them.

[Ottis]

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Because the selling of subprimes among financial institutions was so rampant, transfers of home titles were not handled properly. The volume of paperwork improperly handled was so great, foreclosures were indeed triggered on homes that weren't in arrears, and in some cases, not mortgaged at all. Additionally, some borrowers were advised by their banks to withhold payments in order to qualify for certain re-fi programs, and when they did, they were foreclosed on anyway. This wiki summary is brief, but it's not bad.  There was a passage in the Dayen book, coincidentally enough, wherein a foreclosing bank's attorney made precisely the argument I've pulled from your post in court, when his client was not the legal lienholder of the property in question and couldn't in fact prove the mortgage was in arrears. Because it's a powerful message! Doesn't matter I have no right to have your home! All that matters is I've called you a deadbeat, and I have more lawyers than you! And he won the day in court.

Which, to bring it back around to the show's topic of autolending, in this environment, all the power is in the hands of the lenders, even down to being able to remotely disable your car if some datum somewhere (who knows if it's correct or not, you're not allowed to check) says you've missed a payment. The CFPB was established to level the playing field, and I hope it gets more support and bigger legal teeth to do so.

 

Good info, these things happened during the subprime run up and crisis, and I assume continue to happen today (less often). Because, as you note, they were mistakes, not predatory lending. You note the mistakes during the crisis were caused by the high volume of transferring home titles , so banks/investors could make money. Mistakes made in the pursuit of profits doesn't equal wrong doing. That doesn't fit JO's narrative, though. Big banks and lenders who offer loans to high risk people at accordingly high rates are automatically evil, because that sells.

In reality, very few people who lose their cars or homes on loans are victims of predatory lending, no matter how much JO and others try to make it seem that way. They are far, far more likely to be people who signed loan documents without bothering to understand them, or who were unable to stop themselves from buying something they liked which they could not actually afford. In some actually unfortunate cases, they are people who lost a job or got sick and lost income, or had to have a car to work at all and live with the high interest rate. That's the nightmare scenario for all of us.

Back to my original post - so what is Oliver's solution? Have the gov't support loans for high risk people? What will that cost everyone else? That principle is not working well for health care companies in Obamacare, who are realizing that the number of healthy people they get are being overwhelmed by the costs from sick people. Much like subprime car loan lenders, these health care companies are looking at the risk and pulling out altogether.

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

Watch Keegan-Michael Key and John Oliver Sell You A Very Pre-Owned Car On Last Week Tonight

Bad credit? They don't give a...well, you'll see.

[wknt3]

I keep seeing the criticism that John Oliver isn't providing solutions. Of course this is mostly people who just disagree with John, but is it really his job to offer solutions to every single issue he focuses on? Sometimes he does offer a call to action and sometimes he just points out something that's important and not getting enough attention. Because solutions are complicated and not very funny. I mean John Oliver is brilliant, but there isn't enough time to talk about improving public transportation, ending subsidies for sprawl, actively enforcing regulations for "alternative" lenders in all states and possibly adding new ones targeting the worst abuses, and everything else that might be involved. Especially since so many of the people calling for solutions also criticize him for not covering every nuance.

[stillshimpy]

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It's not fair to lay blame on people getting scammed. Not everyone can afford a financial advisor to protect them, and lots of people think there's laws, like fraud, protecting them anyway. Not everyone can spend 20 hours online researching everything.

 

It's very fair. This is basic stuff, not magic. Would you decide to make a fancy dinner dish without first having a recipe? Would you marry someone without talking to them? Basic finance isn't hard. What's hard, and what people fail at, is having the self discipline to 1) bother to understand basic finance (shoot, read an issue of Money magazine), and 2) refuse to overextend themselves and buy more than they can afford, with products like interest-only loans whose payment balloon after a few years. 

 

3

Actually, in this case, it is demonstrably not fair.  The cars are being sold at hugely inflated values: meaning the lender is actually planning for the borrower to default.  Someone having bad credit is almost a guarantee at some point in this world because kids in freaking college can qualify for credit cards. Store cards, the kind with 25% interest -- in some cases more -- so people are preyed on very early and brains don't actually quit forming until we are 25 years old.  The last area of the brain to fully develop is impulse control.  

So a lot of things in a credit based society are pretty unfair, as it stands.   We offer credit to young people, who have fewer bills of necessity to meet (electricity, food, transportation, housing) at a time of their lives when they are almost certainly going to fuck it up and then are also on the cusp of having all those bills of necessity...and having to make choices about what can be paid.  My son is 25 years old, I helped him get a new car last year, so he qualified for a good, ethical interest rate because he had a cosigner and a good down payment.  He's one of the more fortunate people among his peers, in that he doesn't have student loans.  

So that's just one example of how we pin everything to credit scores and then set people up to flame out, right from jump in the financial world. 

But then back to this practice of making loans with ludicrous interest rates:  being a loan shark is not suddenly rendered acceptable because a car dealership is doing it.  They sell cars at hugely inflated amounts -- an amount they could NEVER hope to recover if it was totalled in an accident, if you need actual proof that this is all entirely intentional and they aren't actually taking on risks, just trying to exploit desperate people, there it is:  part of the risk of auto loans is that the property will be destroyed will still under lien.  That's part of the reason you HAVE to carry car insurance if you have a car loan, so that any outstanding loan can be paid off, if the property is destroyed in an accident.  

When you are charging four, five, six, eight times more than the property is worth, it's not even possible to have it adequately insured. 

So the loans are being made with the expectation that the borrower will default and the lender will simply sell that same car, over and over, at a grossly inflated value.  Never any expectation of rendering a service, or truly providing the goods, just car dealers, acting like ambulance chasers, on the victims they are preying on are desperately trying to get to work on time, or drive their kids to school. 

It's legal, sadly, but it is unfair, it is unethical and here's why it isn't a good idea to tsk-tsk and say that only irresponsible people who didn't financially plan (a theory that I find risible) because when practices this unfair, this predatory are allowed to thrive, it's only a matter of time before it bleeds into an area you might care about.  How about reverse mortgages, designed to prey upon people on fixed incomes?  Often offered to people as a way to pay their uncovered medical debt.  

When these practices go unchecked, the most blatant ones will be aimed at those who are perceived to be not very important, with little power.  No choices.  Unfortunately for absolutely everyone, we all have someone we care about in the groups that are targeted as being easy marks.  

Also one other thing:  the reason my son needed a cosigner wasn't that he couldn't qualify, he didn't have enough credit history to qualify for a good interest rate.  So that "anyone qualifies" bullshit is also designed to catch people who didn't participate in getting a Freshman year Visa.  

Edited August 18, 2016 by stillshimpy

[tenativelyyours]

On 8/16/2016 at 7:13 PM, iMonrey said:

Someone last week made the case that the journalism story didn't feel especially timely and I'd argue the same regarding this car loan piece. On the one hand, I get that JO doesn't want to do politics every week, but on the other hand, we're in the middle of what could arguably be called the most important presidential election in history, so I have a hard time getting invested in stories about car loans right now, to be honest.

 

Yeah.   While I can understand that the show might not want to be all election all the time, this is another financial preying on the poor segment that I root for in general, but in specific when it comes to the timeliness of it all, I just find it a bit odd just for my own viewing pleasure. 

 

I also felt the 'commercial' at the end seems to simply jump the tracks.  Like they went in thinking they had two minutes and it turned out they had four and had to just keep going.  It felt like neither knew what to do or what the other was doing.  It was funny for 45 seconds but... even then it felt like just filler since the act was saying the exact same things almost verbatim as John just went over. 

And I'm glad I was not the only one to think John's take on the bankruptcy lawyer's tone was off and rather odd.  I've heard plenty of my British friends use the same tone of 'can you believe this' incredulity in their voices so I can't think it is a cultural thing.  And it was disgusted incredulity too.  Kind of a cheap off targeted shot that wasn't even needed. 

As stated, what is happening right now in these days until November should be the show's focus.  If they can find some tangents that still tie into that as the main focus fine by me.  We still have states doing things and we have plenty of other people running for office that maybe the show could look at as well.  But it almost seems like they are digging to find anything to focus fully on for the main segment that is not election themed and it just seems almost like a fretful child who isn't sure what is on his plate and thinks everyone at the table should focus on that uncertainty as whether he will like it.  An odd choice I know but there is just something ever so slightly irritating about the whole thing even though it also still amuses a bit (in this analogy its not my kid)

 

Loved the fake ad though.  Loved it.  I'm pretty sure that Chesapeake Natural Gas  ad that ran with that blonde woman you see all over commercial land also used the show's opener but reversed it trying to be clever.

[wknt3]

16 hours ago, Ottis said:

Back to my original post - so what is Oliver's solution? Have the gov't support loans for high risk people? What will that cost everyone else? That principle is not working well for health care companies in Obamacare, who are realizing that the number of healthy people they get are being overwhelmed by the costs from sick people. Much like subprime car loan lenders, these health care companies are looking at the risk and pulling out altogether.

I think we have a good idea here for a segment next show that would address much of the criticism of the last couple shows. I'd love to see an exploration of what's been happening on the exchanges and the media coverage. How what we have is basically a price war as companies underpriced to establish market share and now prices are going up and those who realize they can't compete are dropping out. How costs are still significantly under projections. How Aetna is pulling out of profitable swing states like Pennsylvania to punish the administration for not allowing them to merge with Humana (and and there is documented evidence of them threatening to do so. It ties in to the election without just being the comedy equivalent of horse race coverage, explores favorite themes of corporate fuckery, how the media is often lazy in explaining complex topics with lots of numbers instead of bias, and pundit hypocrisy/amnesia (the same critics who complain about ignorance of how business works or how we should have been focusing on more than just top line numbers during the ACA debate turn around and argue the opposite now) and it even has a fairly simple "solution" - demand that your legislator launch an investigation and strengthen anti-trust enforcement. A win all around.

[attica]

@stillshimpy, I liked your post above, but I need to give you another bit of love for the use of 'risible,' I word I adore and use a lot, usually rolling the r so hard that it properly conveys how I feel. RRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrisible!

[stillshimpy]

Ha!  Thanks, attica, it's a handy word, isn't it? Another of my favorites is "what an entirely daft notion" but risible is the more succinct choice ;-)  I actually didn't want to sound terribly heated up there but part of where I think Jon's point in this piece went wrong is that he focused on his sense of outrage without a lot of focus as to what was specifically outraging him.  So the tone of his piece and the tone of his delivery sort of wandered around, I think because he didn't choose to voice the source of his outrage:  that these loans are designed to try and take gross advantage of people, many of  whom are trying their level best and with every means available to them, to play by almost all the rules, you know?  People trying to make sure they have reliable transportation are trying to be productive members of our world.  To earn a wage, to meet responsibilities, to do the best they can and not all of us start off from a place of privilege.  

It's just very easy for people to screw up their credit, that bad credit can follow them around for ages, long after people have grown up, understand the mechanics of finance and budgeting.  Clearly, that's not going to be everyone's story  when it comes to these kinds of loans but far too often it's going to target single parents, people without a lot of means and people who are desperate for any number of reasons.  

But it also serves to make that cycle perpetual for people.  A lender that is making loans with the expectation that they will be defaulted on is one form of slimebucket but also that default is stacked on top of that person's bad credit, continuing to make it impossible for that person to get a loan via conventional means and guaranteeing that if they want private transportation, they have to continue to use those car dealerships. 

John didn't propose a solution but I could understand his sort scattershot rage: it isn't just about high-interest loans and overly inflated values on cars, it's a larger societal problem that we (general use, not specific) often view things through a lens of judgment aimed at the victim and I think that's what John was so angry about.  Poor people, single mothers, people who have fucked up in ways that we'll never know the full extent of and too often, even if it is grossly unfair and downright unethical, what determines whether or not we're willing to do anything about it, is how we feel about the person the injustice is being inflicted upon.   It really shouldn't matter if I can look at someone and say "I find your personal and financial habits to be laudable and worthy, therefore I set my phasers to outrage and figure out who in my local government I should contact to find out who's been handing out business licenses to modern day snake oil salesmen* " vs.  "I don't think I actually like or admire your personal habits, particularly your financial ones, so fuck it....let the wolves have you for all I care...set phasers to complete indifference."  

It sets an alarming precedent for "I won't care about what happens to you unless I personally approve of you" and in a society where we are all meant to be equal, it's particularly troubling as a trend.  The haves and the "have nots...so have at them" is a really slippery slope and I think very much the reason that John just had a  barely repressed sense of rage.   It's one of the reasons I really value him and have since TDS.  Remember when he went to Switzerland for the TDS segment and ended up talking to an ambassador about Switzerland's neutrality?  It was that same kind of anger that John Oliver reserves for just standing by during injustice.  Plus, for anyone thinking he's not concentrating enough on Trump and the coming election, these kind of issues are very much at the center of them.  

[tenativelyyours]

Yeah I think that we should all be responsible for our own actions on one hand, but I also realize that compared to a lot of people, that comes from a state of simple privilege.  I can want people to have the knowledge to engage in the practice of a loan but how do I guarantee that?  Especially when it seems the people giving the loans are often predatory and that unless there is some kind of law that says they have to give any potential borrowers a competency test before letting them sign at every 'x', it is not going to get better.  And I have no idea how you would implement such a law in a way that makes sense. 

 

But I do think the bias that everyone who needs a car should be at a certain level of education, awareness and even common sense.  I know well educated people by our societal standards that have been screwed over in terms of price for their latest cars because they had no idea how to shop and wanted something bright shiny and new.  NOW.  Yet the twist is that they can afford to be foolish.  They can afford to that more.  And ironically it is not a mark up like what John explained. 

[OneWhoLurks]

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The essential bet being made by the financial markets was that all American house prices wouldn’t tumble at the same time. And they were right up to a point – after all, it had never happened before. And then, of course, starting in 2006, exactly that began happening. All US housing markets started to deflate at the same time. As Dean Baker has spent a decade telling us, that was going to lead to a recession whatever else happened. The evaporation of $8 trillion in housing wealth will do that. Even if there were no mortgages at all, if everyone owned their house free and clear, that wealth evaporation was still going to lead to a deep and nasty recession.

And that just cannot happen with the auto market. We don’t think of nor value cars in the same way that we do houses. A fall in their value, even if it were to happen, just wouldn’t not change our spending habits in the manner that falling house prices does.

The second thing is that Wall Street didn’t fall over because house prices fell, because there was a recession nor even because of syndicated bonds. If all of those bonds from the RMB and CDO and the rest had been bought by end investors, by pensions, insurance, funds, then the banks wouldn’t have fallen over at all. What caused the banking problems was that all too many of the banks had large stocks of such bonds. And they were financing them with 20 and 30 times leverage. Thus, when those bond prices started to fall they had to sell and sell quickly, in order to avoid exhausting their capital. That set off what was a wholesale bank run. And that’s what the Great Crash, rather than the Great Recession, actually was. A wholesale bank run.

 

John Oliver Gets The Risks Of Sub Prime Auto Loans Completely Wrong
 

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Trump’s team may be listening to concerns about his poll-watcher drive. Days ago, those who had signed up on his website promptly received an email stating: "We are going to do everything we are legally allowed to do to stop crooked Hillary from rigging this election.” Comedian John Oliver highlighted the email on his show "Last Week Tonight."

When a Texas Tribune reporter filled out the same form on Trump’s website on Wednesday, the campaign’s reply did not contain that language.

“We are going to ensure that every person who is legally eligible to vote is not prohibited from casting a ballot,” the automated email said. “Someone from the campaign will be contacting you soon.”

 

Texas Leaders Mum on Trump's Plan to Enlist Election Observers

ETA:

For those of you who wonder how anybody could reach adulthood without being able to calculate payments based on X, Y, and Z, I suggest you work in a rural, low-income school district for a couple of years.  I did and met many a high school student graduating with two years of algebra classes under their belt who couldn't even calculate 2 + 3 x 4 correctly.  (They were also taught that the Crusades were a group of missionaries who went around the world helping people.)  These were the same students who magically passed their pre-algebra classes in middle school without learning how to multiply 5 x 6.

Why would the teachers permit such a thing, you ask?  This particular school district is the winner of many an educational grant and award, both on the national and local level, for their exceptionally high graduation rate for a low-income school.  It's why their staff is always able to fly first class and stay in four-star hotels when they attend teaching conferences, despite being such a poor district that they can't even afford to build enough porta potties for their kids to meet state guidelines.

Edited August 19, 2016 by OneWhoLurks

[IvySpice]

John Oliver should have mentioned that once upon a time, we had this "look out for yourself" mentality about ALL consumer products. If you bought sawdust when you wanted flour, then you were an idiot for not smelling and tasting the flour before you bought it. It was the consumer's job to figure out what product was any good.

Nobody thinks that any more. In 100+ years of regulation, we've come to assume that consumers have a right to physical products that won't hurt them. Baby cribs are a lot more expensive than they would be if it were legal to sell ones made out of particleboard. Milk is more expensive than it would be if it were legal to water it down. But no one worries about the consumer's right to obtain the cheaper garbage product. It's bad for society to allow con men to sell crap that hurts people.

JO's point is that it's the same deal with loans. These are bad for individuals and bad for society. This isn't about providing a service to high-risk people; it's about planning the default. There are plenty of idiots out there who will buy sawdust in a flour bag. But it's bad for everyone to allow a business model taking advantage of that stupidity. When people lose their cars and homes, they also lose their jobs, their kids get hurt...it's a domino effect. They end up living in the streets or on public aid. It's better for everyone to only have safe products available in the market, no matter what kind of products they are.

[Neurochick]

On August 15, 2016 at 8:28 AM, vibeology said:

Obviously I don't know the situation fully, but if you live a ten minute drive from work, wouldn't it be faster to walk to work than spend nearly two hours taking a bus and two trains?

Maybe she lives in a place that doesn't have sidewalks?

[candall]

On ‎8‎/‎15‎/‎2016 at 10:51 PM, movingtargetgal said:

My husband was a high school teacher who taught a class on "street law and economics."   The class covered common sense things such as getting a credit card and how you can get under water by just paying the minimum payment, getting an apartment, signing a lease and your rights and responsibilities as a tenant, and taking out loans.  It had been a mandatory class for all seniors.  A new administration came in and ended the course because it was not academic enough and there were other subjects that were more important for the students to learn.  What can be more important than young adults to know their legal rights and be educated on how to manage their finances so they have a more secure future. 

The high school in my small town has a "Personal Finance" class which the faculty passes around--low card loses and has to take on kids who have no clue, and little interest in learning, even the most fundamental lessons of budgets, banks, loans, credit.  Eek!  What could be more important?

I see many people who are about to start paying $64/week for big screen TV's from Rent-A-Center.

[IvySpice]

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Maybe she lives in a place that doesn't have sidewalks?

Yeah, or maybe the 10 minute drive is via freeway and is 10+ miles. There is no way to walk along that route even if you had the five hours a day to walk it. The bus routes, when available, may take forever because you have to make a bunch of connections. That's plausible to me.

[M. Darcy]

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Obviously I don't know the situation fully, but if you live a ten minute drive from work, wouldn't it be faster to walk to work than spend nearly two hours taking a bus and two trains?

My house is just a twenty minutes drive to my office but to walk it would be over two hours so its probably a similar situation.