When I was growing up, rainy Saturday afternoons were often reserved for epic Monopoly board game battles among the neighborhood kids of Plymouth Ave. in Maplewood, NJ, especially when all the ping-pong balls were cracked. Bad weather put the blood sports of pick-up basketball, touch football, street hockey, and stickball on hold, but we still needed a way to bring our competitive juices to a boil. Someone had to win; the rest had to lose and be roundly taunted for it. That was life in the rough-and-tumble world of suburban northern New Jersey back in my day.
As the youngest of three brothers, crowned “Little Dutter” by the gang, my job in Monopoly was banker. The elders decreed that I wasn’t capable of competing to be a titan of fictional real estate yet. While I quietly begged to differ, I knew my place in the hierarchy. I was happy just to be included with the aspiring board game slumlords on the porch.
Often, the games got out of hand because these players loved to bend the rules whenever and however they could. The SEC and DOJ could have used our games as a training ground. Not helping matters was the fact that I was equally corrupt. I could blame it on peer pressure, but really I loved the clandestine wink of approval when an elder asked me to slip them a few tan $100 bills under the table. Eventually, things would go haywire. Players snapped up deeds, railroads, and utilities with wild abandon. They loaded properties with houses and hotels, fueled in part by my cash infusions. They didn’t need to Pass Go and collect $200 or snag a $100 Community Chest windfall to build their real estate empires. Ultimately, the board became awash in increasingly devalued cash, and the game ended in a tedious stalemate—or the sun came out and we headed back to the playing field.
Why share this childhood memory? Aside from unburdening my soul of fictional financial crimes, those Monopoly games remind me of what’s going on in the world today. Rules no longer apply. Cheating is considered good business. Allegiances are no longer sacred. Sovereign territories are invaded. Empathy is nearly non-existent. Greed is most definitely good. The chasm between the few haves and far many more have-nots is accelerating in Big Bang–like fashion. Data is being manipulated, deleted, or ignored—and the engines that power it are destroying the environment. In short, disorder is the new world order.
Today’s corrupt world goes way beyond our gang’s crooked tactics. It’s like a mashup of Monopoly and Risk played by murderous despots. The fact that two real estate executives serve as our president’s point people for nuanced peace negotiations in various war-torn hotspots reinforces this bizarro world theory. So much for diplomatic credentials and regional expertise. It’s all about making a deal, regardless of whether the deal is acceptable for all parties involved (or excluded) in the negotiations.
Today’s despots have an air of invincibility, superiority, and depravity. They seem to believe they’re grand master chess players while the rest of us struggle at checkers. Any carnage is collateral damage. They are far removed from the all-too-real bloody Battleship game they are playing. They know what’s good for us, so they say. In the meantime, things are really good for them, their families, and their donors. President Trump’s personal wealth has reportedly zoomed to $6.3 billion as of this spring—up from $2.4 billion in early 2024. And Vladimir Putin currently ranks as one of the world’s wealthiest people, with an estimated net worth upwards of $200 billion—on an annual salary between $140,000 and $175,000. Hmm…I smell something fishy, and it’s not caviar.
The world is mired in an endless game of Sorry, where the masses are repeatedly “bumped” and forced to start over again. We are all just “pawns” in this game. Meanwhile, the shoe world plays on. Sky-high inflation remains on the front burner as various truce negotiations drag on. Thus, the pivoting, paring back, and passing on of costs continue. And while we’re somewhat shielded by a need for shoes, the threat to impulse buys (our lifeblood) increases. Layer on AI-induced mass layoffs by callous CEOs, several of whom made the cuts merely to look current, and we don’t need to play a game of Clue to find out who is bludgeoning consumers. Their fingerprints are all over that lead pipe, and a ton of potential shoe sales are likely to be a casualty.
Alas, life is not a board game. The damage being done is all too real. The image of sand grains slipping through a Boggle hourglass are a fitting metaphor. Time is running out.
The post Games People Play appeared first on Footwear Plus Magazine.
