If Only Life Was Like Monopoly-

Since I don’t feel rich these days, I can at least make my fortune with a good game of monopoly. I get to hold a wad of cash, even if it's only monopoly money, and buy up prime real estate, sit on it until the market turns, then capitalize on the subsequent building boom by constructing billions of little green houses and big red hotels then retire early before the next downward cycle. As a side investment, I’d horde all of the Get Out of Jail Free cards to sell to the soon-to-be indicted Wall Street Execs.

Unfortunately, life isn’t like monopoly and lately it hasn’t been fun and games. This past week, I’ve witnessed three casualties of the crummy economy and I am sure the jobless body count will continue. My friends are all victims of corporate downsizing and cutbacks and from various industries-one works in human resources, another in PR and a third, a close colleague of mine, lost his job in TV. Given the cutthroat job market, I have resorted to accepting a few crumbs from the crumbling economy myself –low paying freelance writing gigs for the sake of work because it's slim pickins out there.

A lot like life, at least the kind of lives around here, the object of MONOPOLY is to become the wealthiest player through buying, renting and selling property. It seems Florida has gets a big fat F in this area and everyone is suffering the fallout. Apparently, none of us played monopoly in our childhood. If we had, I’m willing to bet we would’ve learned how to hold onto that wad of monopoly cash with wise investments and realize the banker isn’t our best bud, he’s the enabler.

BTW-If you’re short on cash, you can print more monopoly money from the website. If only the same were true for the US Treasury department.