Generational F-Word Wealth
My daughter and I were driving home from town on I-70 at night recently when we came up behind a state trooper. Seeing him from a ways back, I dutifully pulled into the right lane and set my cruise control at the speed limit.
Not long after a car passed me on the left at a pretty good rate of speed. It startled me, though, because it didn’t have its headlights on. Then, as it passed, I noticed that it also didn’t have license plates.
“Well, this should be interesting,” I said to my daughter.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“That guy is about to blow by a cop, without his headlights on, and with no license plates.”
You can probably figure out what happened next.
And this happened on the same day that our CEO Brent had forwarded me a voicemail he had received from someone calling himself the “Hole-Poker” who was an “oil man” and a “very serious person.” The Hole-Poker was asking for “10, 20, or 200 thousand dollars” of capital to bring a project home and create “generational [f-word] wealth.”
Further, he promised that if one invested in his opportunity one would have their money back “within the week,” their kids’ college paid for “within the month”, and after a year, have created “generational [f-word] wealth.”
This, you probably don’t need to be told, is securities fraud.
I recount these anecdotes here to point out that while the actions of these two individuals seemed somehow advantageous to them at one time, rarely does brazen flaunting of the law work out well for anyone. Moreover, lest that seem like an obvious point, here are two individuals doing just that, in my small corner of the world, within hours of each other on the same day. You have to wonder what other ridiculous things went on in the world that day.
So as you head into the weekend, if you’re presented with the opportunity to do something brazenly illegal, don’t. It’s poor risk management and certainly not the way to create generational f-word wealth. I wish no one had to be told that, but at the risk of making another obvious point, here we are.
Have a great one.
– Tim