#615
The Repo Paradox
Published:
Nov 01, 2025
Author:
Sarah Parsons Wolter
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If the economy had a dashboard, the check-engine light just came on. Repo trucks are running overtime again, hauling away cars in record numbers, 1.73m last year, the most since 2009. It’s a sign of household strain that feels almost nostalgic: ballooning auto loans, shrinking savings, and too many people doing the math and realizing the car has to go before the groceries do.
But while one part of the economy sputters, another is running like a finely tuned machine. AI is quietly boosting productivity, cutting prices, and squeezing inefficiencies out of everything from travel to insurance claims. For companies, it’s a gift. For workers, it’s more of a plot twist. Even the repo business has its own automation story with lenders hiring middlemen known as “forwarders” to oversee recoveries, pushing the drivers who actually locate and tow vehicles further down the chain. They’re working harder, earning less, and watching automation eat what’s left of their margin.
It is a neat metaphor for the broader economy, where machines rise, margins thin, and everyone chases efficiency as if it were a moral good. Tow trucks and algorithms might not share much in common, but both are moving faster than ever, powered by the same uneasy question: what happens when the pursuit of efficiency leaves no one left in the driver’s seat?
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