There are many reasons why, including the decrease in value (buying power) of the fiat money we're forced to use to buy things that has not been made up for by an increase in the quantity of fiat money we have to accept as payment for the work we do.

But there is another – subtler – reason. It is one a reader got me to thinking about that I think it's worth all of us thinking about. It is how people renting vehicles – leasing them – is driving up the cost of buying vehicles.

Leasing is a way to get into more vehicle than you could otherwise afford – or want to spend on one – by not buying it. Instead, you rent a portion of its sticker price, paid over a period of say three years rather than making payments for six (or more). A vehicle that might cost you $800 per month to buy only costs $500 a month to lease and of course during the lease period, you pay for very little else because the vehicle is under warranty and because new vehicles don't require more than basic service, such as oil changes and tire rotations, for the first several years and leases sometimes cover these costs, too.

It's a fine deal – for those who want a more expensive, fancier vehicle than they might otherwise be able to afford – if they can afford to sign up for a new lease when the old one ends. Many are obviously able to do that and – clearly – do not mind doing that.

How many? About one in four, according to the available data – or about 22-24 percent of all new vehicle transactions.  Interestingly, the greatest uptick in leasing involves trucks and EVs – two of the most expensive categories of vehicles.

Consider what this means. More finely, consider what it has done. The least expensive iterations of current half-ton (1500) pick-ups all have starting prices close to $40,000. For example, the least expensive version of the 2025 Ford F-150 is the $37,450 XL with 2WD. Adding the optional 4WD – something most truck buyers want because a truck without 4WD is kind of like a cat without claws – bumps the price up to $42,465.

Here is some context for these numbers:

In 1990, the base price of an F-150 was about $12,000. If you plug that into the government's Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator, you get about $29,000 in today's money; i.e., that sum is worth – has the same buying power – as $12,000 did back in 1990. But you cannot buy a 2025 F-150 today with the equivalent-in-buying-power dollars. You must come up with about another $10k – in today's dollars – to swing a new F-150.

Obviously, you get more for that money today – things such as standard AC and power windows and a much more comfortable, "nicer" vehicle, generally. The '90 F-150 was a truck. Metal floors, vinyl-covered bench seats and manual transmission, etc. Wing vent windows instead of AC. But what good are "nicer" things if you cannot swing the price?