Bushonomics 0
He’s put the whole damn country in hock (emphasis added):
The 30-year-old bookkeeper stood pregnant, broke and sad under rows of pawned guitars hanging like curing hams from the ceiling of the ragged South Street shop. She got a $20 loan for her $200 Bulova, a gift from the Harley-Davidson Co., where she used to work.
“It feels so weird,” said Dillingham, accompanied by her fiance, Pat Lapetina, 35, an unemployed ironworker doing painting jobs on the side. The couple recently moved to South Philadelphia from Florida to build a life.
“I worked hard for this watch. I’m middle-class, not poor. I can’t believe I have to do this to buy gas.”
(snip)
“People are cleaning out their houses of gold, silver, whatever, to get money just to fill their cars with gas,” said Nat Leonard, 51, whose grandfather opened Society Hill in 1929. “People are pawning out like crazy.”
Business is up maybe 20 percent over last year.
“With this economy, we’re not done yet with bad times,” Leonard continued. “Not even close.”
Things are so awful, he said, he’s getting loads of first-time customers.
(snip)
It’s not just fuel that’s bringing new people to pawnshops. And they’re not all brick pointers.
“Upper-income people are in pawnshops nowadays, needing money right away to meet payments,” said Bill Stull, chairman of the department of economics at Temple University’s Fox School of Business and Management.
“We are in an economy in which many people are living right at the margins, even middle- and upper-income people. They have little savings, they’ve borrowed so much, their credit-card bills are high, and their house values are going down.”
Over at Carver W. Reed & Co., a pawnshop at 10th and Sansom Streets since Lincoln was president, more and more higher-echelon people are filing in, owner Tod Gordon said.
“The upper middle class is feeling the crunch like never before,” he said. “They’re bringing in diamonds and gold to pay for margin calls on stocks. There’s a feeling of despair.
