If a person were going to purchase something like a car or a house, but they had perfect information about that item, they probably wouldn't buy it.
A new car depreciates an average of $13,000 the moment the ink is dry on the pile of papers people sign at a car dealership. Some cars are plagued with mechanical and other issues. Even an ideally reliable car like a Toyota or Honda will have several issues over its life. Some cars have very high operating expense. New diesel pickup trucks, for example, seem to be plagued with expensive problems. The latest generation of high compression engines, perhaps with single or twin turbo-chargers are probably going to suffer from reliability issues and repair expense will be astronomical. Also, many new cars are loaded with electronic sensors and wiring that will go bad: more $$$.
If a person could see the total cost of ownership up front, would they ink the paper? If they could see all the stress the car expense will cause them, etc... Would they put their future self in chains for 5-7 years of payments? Probably not.
Most of the time, people act in the present without any knowledge of future consequences. It's really not present in their mind at all--by design. Advertising drowns out those longer term views and replaces them with images of contented families and happy dogs.
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