Wonkette
Hey hobos! If you are looking for some Golden Ameros to replace your lost I-banking wages, or your lost 401(k), or your lost home, look no farther than your local pawn shop! They can give you all the money that the banks can’t, now that the banks don’t have any money.
Look, here are some numbers that prove, conclusively, the only thriving business in America is the one that will pay you cash in exchange for your gold teeth:
- First Cash Financial Services recently announced it was shutting down its auto lending division so it could focus on its pawn shops. Their profits rose by 26 percent in Q1 and 39 percent in Q2.
- Cash America International said their Q2 08 profits were 52 percent higher than Q2 07. And they expect their third-quarter results to be up another 13 to 20 percent.
- One pawn shop in Massachusetts gets as many as 200 people a day coming in “to sell all their stuff so they can get gas money” or “pay their mortgages.”
Well, there you have it, America! While the Fed bails out Wall Street and John McCain offers capital gains tax cuts to people with no capital gains to tax, your friendly neighborhood pawn shop will still spot you a 20 in exchange for your bicycle (or your dignity).
Hard times are good times at the pawnshop [MSNBC]
I’ll blow that hobo for a nickel.
GOOD…. the more teh poor sell off their AWESOME stuff, the more the pawn shop FAT CATS can cash in. This is trickle down economics at the most desperate level. Once again, a hearty “fuck you” to Ronald Reagan and our good friend Nixon.
I can get $20 for my dignity!?
Bostoprov: Offering to blow hobos, do Nate Silver, and consider old-school Hillary…creaming pants and lathering panties…horny crowd today!
…how much do you think I can get for a “McCain-Palin” yard sign? I have already stolen about a dozen or so!
AngryBlakGuy: There were a dozen people left who had some?
Oh, but you’re in Florida.
Carry on.
Pawn Shops: it’s like eBay for the bitters.
New Motto of the Pawn Brokers Association of US America:
Let the Bad Times ROLL!
Here in Georgia you can get a loan using your car title as collateral. Interest is only 789%. So you know Baby Jesus would approve.
Pawns are for elitist chess players.
ooh look the markets are crashing again!wheeee
Serolf Divad:
I thought eBay was the eBay for the bitters.
Gee, I sure hope Dubya’s trickle-down socialism works soon and we get some of that free money he gave all the rich motherfuckers who lost everyone else’s money. Or soon it’ll be the old-fashioned torches-and-pitchforks socialism. And if it comes to that, I’ll be looking forward to the new menu: investment banker in glazed orange sauce, chili con CEO, flank of hedge fund manager, that sorta thing. Mmmmm…
Blood banks are doing such great guns that Walnuts refuses to let anyone near his cheek with a bucket and scalpel.
Wonkette is in the pocket of Big Trombone.
It saddens me that even the pawn shop sector is now dominated huge national faceless chains with breezy names like “First Cash Financial Services” and “Cash America International.” What happened to the local businessman who knew his customers by name, that personal relationship easing the pain when he charged them usurious interest rates for petty loans secured with their most cherished possessions? I’m just glad my pawn-shop-owning Jewish grandfather isn’t alive to see this.
I’ve got a burned-out Jetta for sale. Some parts are still good.
phillyhope: 10 year bonds are up!
I want more privatized profit with socialized risk.
Thanks Republicans. Thanks a fucking lot.
Where did you get that picture of McCain 2 years from now?
Also, McCain bought his running mate in a pawn shop in exchange for any remaining dignity, didn’t he?
The pawnshop near my house has a hu-u-u-ge McCain/Palin ‘08 banner outside. They get it.
$20 for my dignity? Dammit. I gave away my dignity to post comments on Wonkette.
My money is going to Big Yurt.
Sarah Palin wants to know what can she get for a used future 17 year old son-in-law?
AngryBlakGuy: HOW DARE YOU!!!
Those signs are IMPORTANT part of the election process…
…but more importantly, we need those yard signs to know which houses to keep an eye on when Obama wins, we need to make sure they don’t go postal on us. And if McCain DOES manage to steal the election, those signs will tell us which houses to torch when we riot in the streets.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Wonketteers….dignity….you crack me up Sara.
WagTehGod: Pawnshops are for elitists.
Real Americans sell their sh!t on the street corner.
Get ahead of the curve people! Didn’t you notice all the fancy finance talk from those pawn outfits? Q2, Q3? Profit percentages? Wow, that’s like science compared to the optimistic alchemy crap you got from banks that traded in mortgage backed securities. Everybody pawn your stuff and buy stock in First Cash Financial Services! Time is of the essence! We just have to pawn our latte machines and fancy eco-friendly bikes and the guitars we use to write pedantic commie folk songs before the bitters start pawning their guns and elvis rugs. A year from now when the stock tops out we can cash-out and go buy new shit.
nurple: Big Trombone better watch out - Big Ukelele is trying to muscle into their territory.
1) (re: middle-gingering hobo) Hey, is that a picture of what Walnuts will look like in two years?
2) McCain has already shown us that pawning one’s dignity is not at all a rewarding thing.
3) In unrelated news, I just farted.
El Topo: I meant “middle-fingering.” “Middle-gingering” is not a simple typo, however: it’s a new preverted sex act I’m marketing to family-values Republicans.
Lord Vader-Cheney has heart issues again
OK, either he is just trying to convince us that he has a heart, or he is going to croak soon, and give a death-bed endorsement of McCain hoping to get the sympathy vote…
Bitters are selling some of their best guns at the pawn shop — my son got some great deals for us the other day. Prepare now for the coming secession struggle — the U.S.A. from Alaska!
azw88: Nah, he’s planning on faking his own death so that Bush can name Condi his new VP, at which point one of two things will happen: 1) everybody rallies behind Bush in the wake of the “tragedy” and falls in love with our new female Veep, thus leading to McCain’s “election”; 2) Rove’s plan (see #1) fails, so Bush suspends the election, fakes his own death, and Condi becomes our martial-law preznint. Either way, she will rule with an iron fist for 40 years until she finally nukes us all, the end.
Pawn Shops. Where Joey six-pac banks.
Oh crap, this setting up a Pawn Shop Bubble and when that bubble pops, we’ll be really screwed.
azw88: It’s because we took North Korea off the state sponsored terroist list.
Some one dress up like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a dance around his hospital room so we can finish off the old skin bag.
AngryBlakGuy: Hey, I have a bag full of “support our troops” yellow ribbons!
Beef Supreme: Don’t think of it as a pop, think of it as a slow leak. We’ll have more than enough time to pull out and then reinvest right before the bailouts start.
azw88: Oh ho ho. Cheney? Sympathy? That’s rich.
As someone who is addicted to acquiring power tools and guitars, I’ve spent a lot time browsing in pawn shops, but not much time buying. All the stuff always seems waaay overpriced for used shit. Anybody else notice this?
I’ve always just assumed these guys aren’t really interested in selling anything; the shops are just a front for much more lucrative drug and prostitution operations.
Hanging out with hoboes is hella fun. Nothing’s better than eating hobo stew (boiled shoe leather and dandelions) and playing stinky finger.
…and in related news, ‘Ring of Fire’ seems to once again be the Dow’s theme song.
Lascauxcaveman: As a person who once hocked his guitar and laptop, YES. You get no money for selling it, and then it costs a million dollars more to buy it back again…. just like the mortgage crisis, but on a neighborhood level.
AngryBlakGuy: Not as much as the Special Limited Edition “Maverick/Barracuda ‘08″ merchandise that’s popped up on CafePress and other fun places. Ah, how things change in one month.
http://www.cafepress.com/jeebub/5914400
http://www.americanconservativedaily.com/2008/09/maverickbarracuda-designs-now-available/
(I love the green “Obama bin Biden” graphic with the Islamic moon ‘n’ star. Proof that Obama is a half-breed Muslin!)
Lascauxcaveman: The prices ARE way too high, but that’s because you can haggle them down. They’re not supposed to be set prices, a la Target.
McCain should pawn Sarah Palin to get money for his campaign. Or rent her by the hour.
user-of-owls: Now Nancy Reagan has been hospitalized… Coincidence????
Come to think of it, have you ever seen Cheney and Nancy together in public???? I’m just say, seems coincidental…..
How is the prostitution industry doing? Can we securitize that and IPO it? I bet earnings are strong, hard, and steady, what with all the i-bankers who can no longer afford hot girlfriends, and all the hot girlfriends who now have to find another way of supporting their cocaine habit. I smell opportunity. No, wait, that’s a different smell. This is more of a infected herpes sore kind of smell..
That photo is not hobo transcendence.
Since no one has mentioned it yet, I just gotta say this new picture of Jack Nicholson shows that the economy is taking its tolls on Hollywood as well.
Now that I can get all my economic news from Wonkette as well as everything political, if the editors add a few more areas of interest–porn and gossip, for example–they will have replaced the entire Gawker Media empire.
“A repo man spends his life getting into tense situations. ”
Repo’s doing great too, but I’m taking classes for that “bring out your dead” wheelbarrow position.
donner_froh: I really wish The Consumerist had the same editors. They banned me when I made a snarky comment about the baselessness behind a “CELL PHONES CAUSE CANCER IT’S TRUE” article. The commenters are pretty dumb as well (or libertarian, but I repeat myself), so I didn’t really lose anything from the experience.
i recently found the ron paul blimp for $35 at a shop in anacostia…just in time to fly it to canada!
“The economy is fundamentally sound.” Didn’t somebody famous say that?
It has been several months since a comment made to this page. How interesting it is in retrospect to read. Someone new has now suggested the economy is fundamentally sound as well. It just takes some people longer to learn and even realize what they are seeing when they look right at it. Frustrating for a man alleged to be so smart to prove to be such a slow learner. Maybe he’ll be more engaged with the needs of special ed issues.