Free money? Sure, what could be wrong with that?

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My colleague Sean Gregory has a piece up on Time.com about a Toyota advertisement for zero-percent financing that’s annoying the heck out of sports fans. Apparently, the song “Saved by Zero” stops being catchy if you hear it at every commercial break.

I get that automakers are desperate for people to come buy cars, but zero-percent financing? Really? Didn’t we just learn this lesson? That when we lend money to each other we should charge an appropriate interest rate lest things get wildly out of hand?

Well, my guess is that very few people are actually qualifying for those loans, anyway. Zero-percent financing has always been used as a way to lure customers into dealerships. And right now it’s hard to begrudge the poor car companies that.

Barbara!