The New York Times editorializes in favor of a crackdown on auto loans (which I wrote about here): “A report by the Center for Responsible Lending estimated that dealer markups on loans made in 2009 would cost consumers an additional $25.8 billion over the lives of their loans.” Glenn Kessler, a Washington Post fact-checker, took a look at that figure a few weeks ago, after Senator Elizabeth Warren cited it. Turns out it’s completely worthless, a fake statistic.
Kessler tweeted that he thought “nobody serious would use that stat” after his debunking. Nobody serious did.