Payday Pundit

Very interesting piece on PBS’s Nightly Business Report last night.   (Scroll down to the segement on pawnbrokers.)  Key passage:

JERRY WHITEHEAD, OWNER, PAWNSHOP CONSULTING GROUP: The traffic, the amount of product that we’re buying and lending on, has increased substantially. To give you one metric, I would say that most of my clients have seen about a 50 percent increase across the board in lending and buying activity of that one commodity, which is the gold, the metal, a significant increase in that.

YASTINE: The national credit crunch is also contributing to growth in the pawn business. As banks have curtailed their lending, it’s forced even the wealthy to come in and use their hard assets like Rolex watches, diamond rings, cars and even boats as loan collateral to meet their short- term cash needs.

People with assets to pawn have lots of options.