Life of Riley: Deciding

Deciding

How are youse? Still making two ends meet?

— Doin' my best.

There's not much else you can do, is there?

— Not much else.

'Cept hold your head above water.

— That's right. Makin' do.

Yesiree. You can only do your best.

— Only your best.

But sometimes best ain't good enough. You follow me? You bust a gut and then even that ain't enough. Try as you might, you start to go under. The bills mount up and you lose the plot. You're cactus.

— You talkin' about someone in particular?

No. No-one special. Just general like, that's all. I'm making an observation. I mean, look at this thing what's happening in the stock markets at the moment.

— I'm not up with it, are you?

You don't have to be. Sure as hell all you need to know is that it looks bad. You, me and the other geezer are in for it.

— But I don't own any shares.

You don't have to. It doesn't work that way. When the bottom drops out like this, it's every man for himself. Mark my words: liquidate your portfolio.

— But I don't have any bloody shares.

If you had, I'm giving you fair warning. Mum's the word: property. Stick to real estate.

— But I own nothin' but a mortgage.

A nice little unit or two. Steady income with the option to negative gear.

— Sure. In my dreams.

I'm just trying to be helpful. If you were a shareholder and the markets went bust like this, I'd pull out and cut my losses. But since you're not ...

— Yeah. Go on, Mister Know-all. Since I'm not ...

Since you're not ... well, what can I say? Will you go with a GST or settle for Labor?

— Do I have to choose?

'Fraid so. It's a democratic country, you know.

— Decisions. Decisions.

By Dave Riley

From GLW issue 331