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Fool’s Gold: American Dream At The Pawnbrokers

Halli Casser-Jayne writes: Thars gold in them thar jewel boxes or at least thar used to be before the U.S. economy tanked and America’s middle class tanked with it. Ta ta Tupperware Parties, au revoir Botox soirees; what’s ‘in’ amongst the American middle class these days is not panning for gold but casting out gold at gold selling parties.

It’s the new American Gold Rush…a rush to sell family heirlooms to help pay the mortgage, the electric bill, the phone bill, the cost for the rising-again tank of gas. Yes, the ‘Family Jewels’ are for sale. Sayonara great-great Grandma’s gold and diamond pendant and any semblance of nostalgia. Jewels begone! is the new American mantra, sorta this mean-season’s Off with your head!

Can’t sleep at night worrying about how you’re going to pay your mortgage? Lullaby yourself to sleep to the tune of all night infomercials that once offered age defying skincare products for those who had it all in the go-go-gone days of excess, but now offer instruction on where to sell the family jewels in order to eat. When the golden bough breaks, the cradle will fall and down will come baby, cradle and all…

Because when America’s new golden boy, President Obama and his first lady dine in hoity-toity restaurants in the Big Apple — no Golden arches for them — and shuttle their golden children off to Paris and the UK for a fun-filled international holiday, more Americans than the administration has acknowledged are wondering where the hell their next meal is coming from and cancelling their own trips on Airbuses to golden sands in the sun.

The numbers of Americans deeply affected by the “recession” are staggering in this semantically-challenged description of the worst economy since the Great Depression. Over 10 percent of American workers are unemployed but economists admit the figure probably does not reflect the real state of things as the number reflects only those workers who are still actively seeking jobs and not those who have given up. The figure, by the way, is well-above the administration’s projections and the administration admits the numbers are only going to get worse.

The rate of home foreclosures continues to escalate and the housing market won’t improve anytime soon. Mortgage rates are beginning to climb. The bailed out banks are only exasperating the problem by not loosening their purse strings while they continue to reward bad behavior with golden parachutes to their not-top-notch executives.

Ask most Americans and they’ll tell you that the banks should have been foreclosed upon and still should be. So what if economists say that if you don’t save the banks you can’t save the American economy. So far, for all the administrations precious-metal talk, there’s no proof in the pocketbooks of average Americans that the economy is improving.

When the banks can’t pay their bills they are rescued, and then they turn around and charge the rescuers for having rescued them. Apparently bankers never heard of The Golden Rule. Has anyone looked at their bank statements lately to see the escalation of charges for once free transactions? Anyone ever hear of the term double jeopardy?

The real victims of the banks shenanigans and the complicit Obama economists are the kids and the elderly. Wannabe college students are being forced to drop out of school at alarming rates unable to afford the cost of classes and finding it harder and harder to obtain scholarship money.

The elderly on fixed incomes are met with the rising cost of gas and food, co-pay rates on insurance premiums no longer ‘co’ anything. You pay us for insurance and we’ll charge you for your healthcare, the new American way. The cost of the simple necessities of life inch up day by day as American’s pockets are depleted day by day. Wanted: A little gold dust!

More proof that times are wretched: Credit card delinquency rates are up 11% from last year. And no joke, check out this nugget from a leading New York paper: “Spam is in, New York Strip Steaks Out.”

OK, even the rich are finding themselves effected by the bad economy. Business is booming for Nick Popovich, the Learjet Repo Man. The purveyor of luxury fashion, Vogue magazine, is planning to rev up interest in fashion despite the difficult times with a September 10 fashion event meant to show that despite difficult times, “we more than ever need the enchantment and pleasure fashion brings,” said Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld in a statement signaling that even the wealthy have stopped spending money on clothing…

And apparently, on mortgages, too; an ABC News headline reads: “Top 14 Celebrity Foreclosures.’ The story chronicles the financial woes of baseball player Jose Consejo, mob boss daughter Victoria Gotti, New York socialite Veronica Hearst, not to mention the perennially financially challenged Michael Jackson among others.

That’s the way it is in America these days, in the land of the free-to-sell-your-family-jewels and the home-of-the-brave to face each miserable day as it comes.

The new gold standard for Americans under the watch of The Gilded Obama Era proving all that glitters is not gold.

– End –

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