The broken end of the American dream

Another story to give you a feel for how the American economy is progressing:

"You feel bad, you don't want to take their wedding rings from them, that's their memories and everything," says Michael Bruce from behind a row of thick steel bars. "But they need the money and that's what we are here for."

Bruce holds out a black velvet jewelry tray, each row holds a dozen wedding rings: big diamond, little diamond, stylish or gaudy, he has dozens. "While they take the ring off their finger, they get all choked up. It's just something you got to deal with... That's just the way the economy is, it's trash."

Bruce, whom everyone here calls Junior, is the manager at a pawnshop on the outskirts of Hollywood, Florida, itself a diamond of a city set on the perfect setting of Southern Florida's Atlantic beaches. "It is easier for them to pull a ring off their finger than to bring in a lawnmower," says Bruce, who says Americans are so desperate to pay off their mortgages that they are coming to his pawnshop to sell "everything from musical equipment to the gold teeth from their mouth.

From here, via onepence in this Kitco thread.