people like us

There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else. That is the misery of being poor.

Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism

While dad was away, something like half of his friends upgraded or increased their real property holdings. So yesterday the parentals made their rounds upon said new acquisitions, officially to offer their congratulations, unofficially to check out the competition, obviously.

Incidentally, in light of such developments, continued non-acknowledgment is expected of his purchase abroad of comparatively more depreciable assets. But I'm over moaning about that.

What I was wondering, apart from where these taxi drivers, cable guys, tilers, nurses, fish-&-chips-shop owners, Centrelink customers (or combinations thereof) find the deposits for 7-figure waterfront mansions and/or multi-acre farms, was how many repressed disgruntled or generally ill-adjusted offspring these folks will one day let loose into the world. Every dollar that flows into the family asset pool is one less for the Fun Fund. Every weekend spent accumulating pecuniary wealth is one more blank in a little ABC's childhood memory.