7thriv

Media stories about "struggling" americans are one of the few growth industries during a recession. With a crash as dramatic as the one we are living through, such stories have exploded in value. You might say there is a bubble in hard luck tales. But there is always something a little off about them, where the media's clear desire to tell a tale of Dickensian woe ultimately collides with the reality that the U.S. remains a wealthy country. Take this article in the W$J about the increasing use of pawn shops by the (former) upper middle class. The story begins with the sad story of a "fashionably dressed young man" who tries to pawn his Movado watch to make his $2,500 mortgage payment. He is strapped because he lost his tech job earlier this year and has been reduced to washing airplanes at the airport. He is turned away at the pawn shop because Movados, while expensive, are not desirable in the pawn shop world (does that help or hurt the Movado trademark). The young man says he is "not sure what (he's) going to do." He then turns and gets into his Cadillac Escalade. Here's an idea as to what to do, kid: SELL THE FREAKIN' ESCALADE!!!