If greed is so good, why can't I afford some?
I was studying the Business Review Weekly this week to see if I got a mention: Ramray, Rathbone, Reid, Richter, Roberts, Roche, Roth, Rydge — but no Riley in the journal's list of Australia's 200 richest. None of my relatives nor kin by default — the Reillys, Rilleys or O'Rielleys — got in either. In fact, I don't think I am related to any of the 775,000 people in this country who earn more than $100,000 per year (and if I perchance were, I am sure to be the black sheep of their family). Mum never mentioned anything about an extraordinarily rich uncle.
I guess that we Rileys (Reillys, Rilleys or O'Rielleys) don't have a head for business. Take my mater for instance. She's 72, widowed and living alone — and I'm still sending her cash so that she can keep afloat financially. I keep telling her that you can do a lot with mince, but does she listen?
My guess is that it's in the genes. I never got ahead either. (With such a spendthrift for a mother, is it any wonder?) In fact, if I want to entertain the notion of joining the richest 200 list, I had better get cracking. The super rich are doing well — so well that to qualify for their club I'd have to earn more than $500,000 per year and do it for the next 100 years to get together the $50 million deposit I'd need to enter their ranks.
Do you have any suggestions as to how I could do it? I simply have no idea. My guess is that I'll have to resign myself to being a shitkicker for the rest of my life.
When you look at the figures, it is hard to believe that they'd miss a few hundred thousand if perchance such largesse were to suddenly come my way. Tallied up, the net private sector wealth in this country comes to $1753 billion. Of this Kerry Packer owns $3.3 billion and Richard Pratt (he of Westfield shopping towns) owns $1.5 billion — and so we go (way) down the list until we get to me and you.
How long this list is and how far it goes down was recently suggested by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling at the University of Canberra. By their figures, 1.7 million Australians scrape by in poverty. Another 700,000 live in only slightly better conditions so that the proportion of Australians living in or near poverty runs at approximately 17%.
While 4.4% of the population are pulling in more than $100,000 a year (thank you very much) a good proportion of the rest of us are surviving on less than a quarter of that.
And I, dear reader, have spent my life among them. I'm not proud. I admit my poverty. But I can't help feeling a touch resentful. Kerry Packer earns in one minute what I take a week to pull in. And as for my young friends working their butts off for $6 an hour: it all seems a bit unfair, don't you think?
In such circumstances, I begrudge Packer his billions. I do. How is it that he's in the money and I'm not? What did he do to earn it? And tell me: why doesn't he stop now that he's so far ahead? If greed is so good, why can't I afford to be greedy too? Unfortunately, I think I've missed my chance. Maybe it was the wrong sperm — my Dad was all right for a father, but he wasn't a Packer. Maybe I should have studied harder, saved more, worked more overtime, stayed off the grog and given up fags earlier. Maybe it just simply wasn't meant to be. Maybe for the likes of me, life wasn't meant to be greedy.
Dave Riley