What Oliver's piece doesn't address is what is the solution for someone who is objectively a terrible risk to lend money to?
Don't lend them money they cannot repay, that will trap the further in the and guarantee they remain poor. Force those who need transport to think outside the box, carpooling, bikes, walking, running, public transport, uber, lyft.
I wonder whether there are any government initiatives pressuring lenders into the subprime auto market, the way they were pressured into subprime mortgage lending?
The Community Reinvestment Act and the American Dream Down Payment Assistance Act were well-intentioned, and they put significant financial and legal pressure on banks to not "unfairly" reject lenders with bad credit, low income, and other things that generally identify them as bad risks. The idea was to help level the playing field by providing people an opportunity to own a home, who wouldn't otherwise have had it. For the most part, the default rate is higher among subprime borrowers than it is among other mortgage borrowers, but it turns out that it's not the majority and it's nowhere near 100%. Walter Williams has written pretty extensively on the subject.
I definitely see parallels between the subprime mortgage market, which got pretty predatory, and the current subprime auto lending community.