Don’t get caught in another man’s game

TherewasanoldTVwestern series back in the 1950s and m’60s called “Maverick” about two semi serious brothers who made their living gambling and they were always quoting what their Ol’ Pappy told them. One of the most memorable was, “Don’t get caught in another man’s game.”

However, the trick is try to figure out what the game is.

It would appear that we are in one of the advanced stages called the financial era where more wealth is created with a pencil than with creating a good or a service. With AI we will move to the final stage where we don’t have to even think anymore; the computer will do that. This means the gap between the super rich and the rest of us will grow wider and wider. Then to seal the difference a lot of this wealth is held offshore in tax havens – an exclusive world without rules or taxes where the needs of the unwashed masses like us are of no concern.

If we see these lifestyles and want to emulate them, we are playing in “another man’s game” and will generally get skinned before it ends. In my younger days I was on an audit team that was employed to examine the finances of a wealthy family in Houston that had created a lot of trusts for the descendants. I found a statement in the files from the patriarch to his children that read “even though you will have this wealth, if you live in houses like your friends, drive cars like your friends and wear clothes like your friends, you will always have friends.” This may be the game we should try to play in.