[Leica] Pawn Shop in Waynedale

[Christopher Crawford]

I agree. Used to be, Fort wayne only had one pawn shop. Just one, and it
was a locally-owned place downtown. About 20 years ago, several pawn shop
chains opened stores in Ft. Wayne, and some had 4 or 5 locations. Today,
there are probably 20 pawn shops here, all except the old one downtown are
owned by large out-of-state chains.

Bad as pawn shops are, there are even nastier ‘predatory lenders’ out
there. Payday loan companies often charge 400% or more annual interest
rates. The loans are supposed to be short term, like a week or two, so the
fees are not ultra-high if paid off in time, but the low-income people who
get these loans often just plain don’t have any extra income after paying
rent and buying food to pay off even a loan of a couple hundred bucks, so
the loans keep piling on interest for months or years!

“Rent to own” stores that sell furniture, household appliances, and
electronics (Tvs, computers) to poor people who pay monthly payments are
terrible too. I recently saw an ad for one of those places, part of a
national chain, in the junk mail I got one day. They were selling $200
washing machines for $900 and $500 computers for $3000. Now, the ad didn’t
say “This is a $200 washer” or “This is a $500 computer” but I knew what
they cost at places like Best Buy. It is very expensive to be poor!

All of these businesses that prey on the poor have exploded in number in
Ft. Wayne in the last 20 years, as the economy has been destroyed and the
decent jobs replaced by $7 an hour shit jobs. Its not just here, its all
over the USA. In places where the cost of living is high, there are
probably even more exploiter business sucking the poor dry. If Ft. Wayne
has any redeeming qualities, its that the cost of housing here is very
low. You can rent a very nice two-bedroom apartment for $500 a month here,
and you can buy a nice house in a middle class neighborhood with a big
yard for less than $100,000. Even then, its a lot of money for those
making the low pay most jobs here offer.

-- 
Chris Crawford
Fine Art Photography
Fort Wayne, Indiana
260-437-8990

http://www.chriscrawfordphoto.com  My portfolio

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Christopher-Crawford/48229272798
Become a fan on Facebook



On 7/3/17, 12:12 AM, "LUG on behalf of Nathan Wajsman"
<lug-bounces+chris=chriscrawfordphoto.com at leica-users.org on behalf of
photo at frozenlight.eu> wrote:

>Nice juxtaposition.
>
>Properly run places do not have pawn shops.
>
>Cheers,
>Nathan
>
>Nathan Wajsman
>Alicante, Spain
>http://www.frozenlight.eu <http://www.frozenlight.eu/>
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>> On 01 Jul 2017, at 02:14, Christopher Crawford
>><chris at chriscrawfordphoto.com> wrote:
>> 
>> I thought that this scene in Waynedale was interesting. A pawn shop
>>with a
>> billboard for a bank above it. Loans for the rich, loans for the poor.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> http://chriscrawfordphoto.com/chris-details.php?product=2691
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Chris Crawford
>> Fine Art Photography
>> Fort Wayne, Indiana
>> 260-437-8990
>> 
>> http://www.chriscrawfordphoto.com  My portfolio
>> 
>> http://www.facebook.com/pages/Christopher-Crawford/48229272798
>> Become a fan on Facebook
>> 
>> 
>> 
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