You can't have a fight if only side participates, so Cayman Islands Premier McKeeva Bush's decision to attack Premier Paula Cox in an open letter this week is likely to go nowhere.Premier Cox has wisely chosen not to join in the fight. The times are too serious for the kind of playground one-upmanship that Mr Bush wants to pursue. Ms Cox should take the high road, apologise for any offence she may have unintentionally caused, and move on.Mr Bush must have known that the picture of two of the most prosperous British Overseas Territories scrapping over who is better at helping people to hide their taxes, which is effectively what he was trying to do, could end up being damaging as well. Financial centres like Switzerland are prized for their discretion, not for being blowhards. But then, it seems likely that he was less interested in winning international plaudits and keener to distract from his own, multiple domestic problems.Since sending his open letter, Mr Bush was forced to abandon plans to impose a ten percent income tax on expatriates earning more than $36,000. That tax was aimed at bridging its own budget deficit, but according to the Cayman Compass, it has been rejected by the British Government, which has a greater say over Cayman's finances than it does over Bermuda's.Mr Bush's government also has to cut expenditures, so it's likely that his administration isn't much more popular right now than Ms Cox's is. So there's ample reason to try to pick a fight with another country and to prove things are worse elsewhere. The Bermuda Government has, after all, done much the same, by claiming that the Island's economic problems are to be blamed on the global recession, and not on the Government's policies, or the lack thereof. Mr Bush won't get much joy, since Cayman's voters are unlikely to care that much about Bermuda's problems when they have their own to deal with.Shadow Finance Minister ET (Bob) Richards did take some stick for saying Bermuda was in fact lagging behind Cayman in terms of innovative policies. Mr Richards was essentially accused of being unpatriotic (patriotism being the last refuge of scoundrels, as Samuel Johnson famously said) but the current foolish row hides the fact that the Caymans have been more aggressive in changing policies to deal with changing times. It could be argued that compared to Bermuda, that's not hard.Time will tell if Cayman's aggressive defence of its status as a tax haven will work better than Bermuda's attempt to work with organisations like the OECD and to present itself as a genuine financial centre and insurance market. But in other areas, Cayman is taking the lead that Bermuda once naturally assumed, and that is of major concern. Its suspension of its term limits policy is one example. The creation recently of a special economic zone contrasts sharply with Bermuda's failure to encourage entrepreneurs to come here.To be sure, much of Cayman's efforts may be undone by the proposed expatriate tax, but for Bermuda, what's worrying is that there seems to have been no effort to take advantage of this gaffe and to encourage Cayman-based businesses to come to Bermuda, with the prospect of a more level playing field. Bermuda itself stumbled when it raised payroll tax to 16 percent and the cap on taxable income in 2010, and then reversed itself and took the rate back to 14 percent.Having learned from that mistake, Bermuda should act now to take advantage of Mr Bush's gaffe and use it to get the Bermuda economy moving again.