I imagine life can often feel pretty difficult for todayโs high school students.
On top of dealing with classic teenage drama like homework, hormones, pimples, parents, driving, dating, university selection, and more, students these days have to contend with a host of new challenges.
They suffered long periods of brutal Covid lockdowns. Active shooter drills are a normal part of student life. And, of course, thereโs the nonstop anxiety and peer pressure of social media.
Plus, on top of everything else, students today have also been force-fed some pretty bizarre ideas.
Classical literature, advanced mathematics, and hard sciences have taken a back seat to social justice, climate justice, economic justice, etc. (as defined by the woke, fanatical left).
But there are early signs that this indoctrination is starting to break new ground.
Yesterday a close friend of mine who lives in Spain told me that his son, a high school senior, has been getting lessons in school about Central Bank Digital Currencies, or CBDCs.
If youโre not familiar with the concept, a CBDC is essentially a cryptocurrency that is controlled by the government and central bank. And so far, at least half a dozen CBDCs have been rolled out around the world, including in Russia, China, and India.
Now, governments already have the means to track you and monitor your finances.
They can force financial institutions and credit card issuers to turn over your entire financial history. They can order banks and brokerage firms to freeze your assets.
And if you remember what happened in Canada during the โFreedom Convoyโ protests, Justin Trudeau Castro used his โemergency powersโ cut the protestors off from the financial system.
They had no access to their bank accounts, ATMs, or even crowdfunding platforms.
Governments already have the power to do all of these things.
But CBDCs take this power to a much higher level… because thereโs no more middleman. Government authorities wouldnโt have to bother going to banks, brokerages, and credit card companies; they could simply deactivate your funds with a mouse click.
Have fun trying to buy groceries.
Now, even though only a handful of CBDCs have been rolled out around the world, there are over 100 central banks that are developing their own CBDCs. And that includes both the United States and the European Union.
My friendโs son (again, a high school senior in Spain) explained that his teachers are absolutely gushing over the idea of CBDCs.
In a class which covers banking, mortgages, and the financial system, theyโre telling the kids that, probably within a year, the new โdigital euroโ will be rolled out. And eventually it will become mandatory.
Cash will cease to exist, and all money will be registered with the European Central Bank.
Europeโs army of bureaucrats will know whatโs happening, in real time, to every single euro in existence. And there will be no way of getting around it. Financial privacy will be a thing of the past.
The teachers expressed utter joy about this, and the curriculum seems designed to get the kids excited about it too.
They say the digital euro represents incredible progress, and that it will make life easier and simpler.
Businesses will be able to collect payments more easily. Youโll be able to spend everywhere directly from your phone, and maybe cut out the need for credit cards or even traditional bank accounts.
They also say that CBDCs will be an effective way to control money laundering, criminal activity, and terrorist financing. Thatโs why, they explain to the students, the EU has already begun to crack-down on cash and crypto transactions over โฌ1,000.
According to my friendโs son, most students in his class appear pretty excited about CBDCs. Hardly anyone seems fazed by the loss of privacy or increased government authority over their lives.
But intelligent peopleโincluding my friend and his sonโ clearly see where this is going.
Weโve already seen people lose their jobs and be canceled off the Internet for wrongthink. Weโve seen people frozen out of their bank accounts for standing up for their rights.
Frankly, the brutal use of the Prime Ministerโs emergency powers against the Freedom Convoy protestors in Canada should have served as a giant wake-up call: if you hold your lifeโs savings in the financial system of your home country, youโre already taking an unnecessary risk.
And thatโs regardless of what happens with CBDCs.
This means that having some savings outside of the financial system is a completely sensible idea. And fortunately, there are plenty of easy ways to do this, including liquid assets like physical gold and silver, cryptocurrency, and cash.
Itโs hard to imagine thereโs any downside for having direct access to some emergency savings. And this is one of the core principles of any Plan B: it makes sense, regardless of what happens (or doesnโt happen) next.
The CBDC trend is obviously nascent… so itโs not like the Federal Reserve or ECB is going to roll out their CBDCs tomorrow morning and make them mandatory. The sky is not falling, and thereโs no reason to panic over this development.
But independent, thinking people ought to understand where this trend may lead… and more importantly, to take rational steps to minimize the consequences.