They who have time and gold

AND I have heard of Scott Fitzgerald telling another American novelist, Ernest Hemingway, “You know, the rich are different from you and me.” Hemingway replied, “Yes. They’ve United States of America, he sat on got more money.” the porch and contemplated that

The two late novelists, however, he had not spent enough time for did make enough money through his wife and children in his younger wise use of time – writing novels years. He wanted to make up for it that still sell today. As a more familiar but could not due to failing health. quotation, says, “Time is gold.” A thought- provoking proverb

Lucio Tan, one of the richest attributed to 19th-century English Filipino- Chinese businessmen, poet Henry Dobson says, “Time flies, maximizes use of time by flying on you say? Ah, no. Time stays, we go.” his helicopter from one of his Metro We know of hard- working Manila offices to another. lawyers and doctors who make

The ability of the rich to expand hundreds of thousands of pesos a their material wealth in the shortest month but don’t have enough time time amazes employees who work to accommodate all their clients and eight hours a day for sheer survival. patients, respectively. While their bosses play golf, they There are those who, for lack work overtime but still wallow in of sufficient patrons, do not make debt. enough money to maintain a decent

It’s not correct to say, however, lifestyle. that the rich always use time wisely. Burke Hedges, an American Time, unlike money, could not be economist, wrote: “Where would the recovered once spent. Take it from highly paid doctor be if he developed American statesman Benjamin arthritis in his hands and could no Franklin. In 1787 at age 81, having longer create income because he had been elected to the Constitutional to stop working? If you don’t have Convention that would frame the any income other than income from Constitution of the newly-created your job, you’re heading for disaster.”

This explains why the so-called urban poor who receive no regular monthly income, thus unable to rent a home, squat on other people’s real estate.

Economic inequality persists even in the United States, the supposed land of milk and honey. Said an article in magazine, “It takes the average worker half

Business Week his lifetime to purchase a home, accumulate some savings and retirement benefits. It takes about six months of unemployment to lose it all.”

With worse scenario here in the Philippines where even the middle- class lack sustainable monthly pay, the more creative ones strive for a second or third income.

Take for example my Marilou, an office secretary who used

kumareng to worry over not having enough income to see her children through college. But if she were earning well, she might not have launched what is now a profitable sideline with habitual regular customers — selling beauty products.

Obviously, however, the bigger windfall goes to the corporation

manufacturing the beauty products. Anyway, so what?

I once asked a bar owner over beer whether he was satisfied with his sales.

“It’s just enough to enjoy life,” he quipped. “I don’t have to be a Henry Sy to sleep on a comfortable bed. I eat the food that Lucio Tan and John Gokongwei eat. I also travel abroad. It’s okay that they have more of everything. Who knows? They probably have more problems than I have.”

( com/ Korek siya diyan. hvego31@ yahoo. PN)