Watching Pawn Stars last night and Rick said pawning was one of the biggest businesses during the depression.
My town just had its first official pawn shop open; as the town falls to the Bronze Horde, it joins a growing list of businesses that signal the end of American culture in a neighborhood. These include check cashing places, new & larger laundromats to accomodate all of the tenants of illegal apartments, restaurants with no English on their signs (or spoken inside), etc. Our downtown could pass as Cali or Bogota now.
The Meadowlands Flea Market outside Giant Stadium has for years been a place where you can get great deals from Americans selling the trappings of their former middle-class existence for pennies on the dollar. Naturally, most of the buyers no habla ingles; they’re the only ones left as consumers here, spending their untaxed wages as Americans can’t find work.
If the boss must pawn the Rolex to make payroll, probably the handwriting is on the wall.
"In Philadelphia it's worth fifty bucks."