People ask me my forecast for the economy when
they should be asking me what I have in my portfolio. Don’t make
pronouncements on what could happen in the future if you’re immune from
the consequences. In French, they use the same word for wallet and
portfolio.
I have never, ever borrowed a penny.
So I have zero credit record. No loans, no mortgage, nothing. Ever. When
I had no money, I rented. I have an allergy to borrowing and a scorn
for people who are in debt, and I don’t hide it. I follow the Romans’
attitude that debtors are not free people.
I carry euros, dollars, and British pounds. What I
do with my money is personal. People who say they give it to charity,
that’s a no-no in my book. Nobody should ever talk about a charitable
act in public.
I follow the Romans’ attitude that debtors are not free people.
Better to miss a zillion opportunities than blow up once.
I learned this at my first job, from the veteran traders at a New York
bank that no longer exists. Most people don’t understand how to handle
uncertainty. They shy away from small risks, and without realizing it,
they embrace the big, big risk. Businessmen who are consistently
successful have the exact opposite attitude: Make all the mistakes you
want, just make sure you’re going to be there tomorrow.
Don’t invest any energy in bargaining except when the zeros become large. Lose the small games and save your efforts for the big ones.
There’s nothing wrong with being wrong, so long as
you pay the price. A used-car salesman speaks well, they’re convincing,
but ultimately, they are benefiting even if someone else is harmed by
their advice. A bullshitter is not someone who’s wrong, it’s someone
who’s insulated from their mistakes.
What is in his wallet? Euros, dollars, and British pounds.
There is less “skin in the game” today than there
was fifty years ago, or even twenty years ago. More people determine the
fates of others without having to pay the consequences. Skin in the
game means you own your own risk. It means people who make decisions in
any walk of life should never be insulated from the consequences of
those decisions, period. If you’re a helicopter repairman, you should be
a helicopter rider. If you decide to invade Iraq, the people who vote
for it should have children in the military. And if you’re making
economic decisions, you should bear the cost if you’re wrong.
Ninety-eight percent of Americans—plumbers,
dentists, bus drivers—have skin in the game. We have to worry about the 2
percent—the intellectuals and politicians making the big decisions who
don’t have skin in the game and are messing the whole thing up for
everybody else. Thirty years ago, the French National Assembly was
composed of shop owners, farmers, doctors, veterinarians, and small-town
lawyers—people involved in daily activities. Today, it’s entirely
composed of professional politicians—people who are just divorced from
real life. America is a little better, but we’re heading that way.
If you decide to invade Iraq, the people who vote for it should have children in the military.
Money can’t buy happiness, but the absence of money
can cause unhappiness. Money buys freedom: intellectual freedom, freedom
to choose who you vote for, to choose what you want to do
professionally. But having what I call “fuck you” money requires a huge
amount of discipline. The minute you go a penny over, then you lose your
freedom again. If money is the cause of your worry, then you have to
restructure your life.
The best money I’ve ever spent has been spent on
books. The stupidest thing I’ve ever spent money on? Books. Also, I
cannot understand why anyone would spend any amount to enhance their
social status.
If nobody’s paying my salary, I
don’t have to define myself. I find it arrogant to call yourself a
philosopher or an intellectual, so I call myself a flaneur and I refuse
all honors. As Cato once said, it’s better to be asked why there is no
statue in your name than why there is one.
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