Is Gen Z is Being Groomed by the Elite Class to be Good Plebs?
I was talking with some friends about the ‘Ok Boomer’ phrase that’s recently gained popularity with Millennials and Gen X, which that got me thinking about Gen Z.
In a private telegram group, I posted the tweet above where Barry Silbert from Grayscale Bitcoin Trust trolled Peter Schiff from Schiff Gold.
A Millennial founder friend asked “Why is being a boomer a bad thing?”
I thought this was just a meme, the new ‘learn to code,’ a memetic response when someone from the baby boomer generation says something you disagree with.
Then a Gen X friend of my Willy Woo said something very insightful.
“It’s because they never fought a war or died for their way of living, their parents generation did, they were the hero generation that grew up in the depression, weathered two world wars, and rebuilt society with strong institutions and regulations to protect society that set the stage for all the generations since.
In that backdrop, the boomers got experimental, got high, lived on communes (5% of all Americans), professed love not war, rallied a lot, made some cool music, and when the money ran out they went back to corporate America whereby they created debt and stole from the generations after them.
Barry is saying to Peter, it’s your generation that created this mess and you’re selling us on this old gold shit to get us out, well we have our own shit now.”
We discussed the book The Fourth Turning and how it’s recommended reading for understanding generational cycles.
For a refresher, here’s how to identify what generation you belong to:
The Silent Generation: Born 1928–1945 (73–90 years old)
Baby Boomers: Born 1946–1964 (54–72 years old)
Generation X: Born 1965–1980 (38–53 years old)
Millennials: Born 1981–1996 (22–37 years old)
Generation Z: Born 1997-Present (0–21 years old)
I’m an elder Millennial, most of my deep thinking happens in the hot steam of the shower. Lately I’ve found myself shower thinking about Universal Basic Income & the anti-capitalist, socialist leaning online movement.
I recently wrote an article about how most people don’t realize we aren’t in a capitalist system. The conversation with my friends in telegram, framed around generations, got me thinking about how Gen Z might be doomed by UBI & MMT.
As a Bitcoiner, I believe our current monetary paradigm is a giant scam aimed at transferring wealth from the plebeian class to the 0.1% uber rich bankers & their friends. 23 Trillion dollars of debt from bank bailouts & decades of deficit spending doesn’t make any intrinsic sense to most people who are drowning in credit card & student loan debt.
Most bitcoiners came to bitcoin because they feel it’s a hedge against our system of debt based money which is doomed to fail via hyperinflation or a deflationary spiral.
I believe in helping people. I pay high taxes plus I’m charitable on top! I try to instill qualities of self-confidence, compassion & empathy for others, charitable giving & selflessness in my daughter.
My daughter is 9 years old, she’s Gen Z.
Her generation is being brought up in a social justice revolution based on compassion & sensitivity, which is a great thing — but not when it’s being weaponized by the forces that really run the show.
The group that controls the money supply, co-ordinates the mainstream news narrative, and influences culture is known as the deep state because they are embedded deeper than elected leaders who have term limits.
Conan O’Brien has comedically exposed the co-ordination of mainstream news multiple times in a hilarious segment where he shows how news anchors all say the same thing.
A president can only be in charge for 8 years, but these people who control money are outside of the political system, and their influence remains after a president is long gone.
I don’t think it’s controversial to say that lobbyists for crony capitalist corporations & the military industrial complex have more influence over policy than the president.
Who else has more long term impact on policy than elected officials? Ex-politicans who run the military industrial complex, banking insiders who get bailouts & government jobs instead of jail time, the immoral money behind big pharma who are responsible for the opioid crisis.
The elite banking class figured out generational complacent enslavement through funnelling families into lifetime debt. Combine that with opaque control of the money supply, and you’ve got more influence than elected politicians.
Mainstream news & silicon valley technology companies amplify division between the left & the right, but they also provide a stronger amplification of the message of anti-capitalism & pro-socialist fiscal policies like modern monetary theory & the green new deal.
My daughter’s generation is being traumatized the stress of debt & and alarmism. Kids are being fed a message of catastrophic climate emergency, a mass extinction event & social outrage cancel culture.
Many millennials & gen Zs actually believe that we only have 10 years left before the planet is destroyed by carbon emissions.
Young people are being fed an anti-capitalism pro-socialism message from celebrities, which combined with high generational debt loads, is likely to continue the trend in declining rates of entrepreneurship.
Gen Z are digitally native, but they are also growing up in an era where surveillance capitalism and mass government surveillance is normalized. Kids are growing up in an age of screen addictions & information overload (much of it alarmist disinformation, or fake news amplified by algorithms designed to keep you engaged longer to sell you more ads).
Privacy rights are being minimized & trampled on. Who’s speaking out against that? Where are the celebrity influencers showing Zoomers that we should defend free speech & whistleblowing when it comes to Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange or Edward Snowden?
Whether you like it or not, Google, Facebook, Twitter etc tend to censor conservative viewpoints and amplify the social outrage to keep people arguing about bathrooms & Trumpisms.
Gen Z is being groomed with algorithmic confirmation bias to be good plebs. Combine this with fiscal policies like MMT & UBI, and Gen Z could be the most sensitive, most entitled generation, addicted to screens, anti-depressants & government checks.
Thinking in long time frames a la The Fourth Turning, North American youth risk being more disconnected from reality than billions of their generational peers in China, Russia, India, etc.
Rather than addressing the problem with money, the millennial/gen X/boomer politicians on the left & the right are pushing bailouts, deficit spending, war spending, UBI & socialist ideas like green new deal & modern monetary theory.
We are seeing a generation be raised with great social values — compassion & social justice. I worry if they get UBI they will be raised not only digitally native but also more reliant on the government’s safety net than their own efforts.
Gen Z will likely be less interested in entrepreneurship since capitalism is under attack by the older generation of politicians that influence them.
Under a UBI reality, basic needs will be provided, and since capitalism is being demonized by the leadership that pushes through UBI, Gen Z will strive for less.
The deep state money masters in charge aren’t ‘controlling’ this political & social narrative, but they are amplifying it. They want a herd of subservient citizens. They benefit from generation Z being strongly anti-gun & submissive.
The same generation of kids in China & Russia are not being raised this way, if there is ever going to be another world war, China & Russia will have the generational advantage.
Hopefully there won’t be another war, and hopefully the elites lose their power. Hopefully the future is one where flowers & roses bloom all over the world. It would be great if modern monetary theory provides abundance for all & ends human suffering.
However, it’s undeniable that Bill Gates is doing more to end human suffering than Bernie Sanders is. Just watch the Netflix documentary Inside Bill’s Brain.
We already live in a world of Modern Monetary Theory.
The core tenant of MMT is that debts don’t matter. It’s Keynesian economics on mushrooms. Just look at ballooning national debts.
This isn’t a Republican v Democrat debate. I first heard about MMT from democratic candidates trying to push a socialist agenda to use MMT to bail out the citizens from crushing debt.
It’s a good thought exercise— if the banks can get bailed out, why not the working class!
It’s not fair that younger generations are saddled with historic levels of debt and it’s not capitalism that the banks control the money supply and get bailed out of their debt. The fair solution is that nobody that takes on debt & excessive risk should get bailed out, not the banks & not the plebs … however the banking elite have pillaged the treasure of a nation using a cheat code (quantitative easing) and have left a generation in perpetual exponential debt, so maybe there’s a valid case for hitting the reset button.
The big problem with socialist MMT is the USD is a global reserve currency. If US wipes debts of its citizens, the rest of the world needs to do the same for their citizens, or the rest of the world will stop using the USD as a reserve currency.
Game theory suggests we see a shift to MMT & global debt jubilee for all or USD bust.
You can debate the merits of Austrian economics vs Keynesianism — but we are decades on the path of counterfeit capitalism.
Keynes suggested saving during good times & spending during bad, central banks never tried the saving part … MMT is the far extreme of Keynesianism.
The world is at obscene levels of debt and it’s clear that governments are not going to slow down the spending. As the world shifts to MMT, this means they can kick the can down the road, perhaps decades. With MMT done properly, the stock market can continue its bull run for another 10 years or more.
With MMT done wrong, Bitcoin can be a hedge against the currency crisis & stock failure that will likely happen.
There’s game theory at work here. If the world’s central banks coordinate & shift in unison to accepting MMT as a new reality, sort of like a modern Bretton Woods agreement, then there will not be a global meltdown.
If the USA embraces MMT while any of the larger economies resist MMT & go back to a value based / Austrian economic system, USD implosion is probable.
Hedges against this implosion are assets like real estate, bitcoin, art, gold.
I actually think it would be nice to live in a world where we have UBI for the poor. The humanitarian in me wants to see the people rise up and use the government’s monopoly on money to eradicate disease & end suffering.
Imagine a world of global prosperity via MMT … that’s something I can get behind, but the #CantillonEffect suggests the likely outcome will be corruption & more of the same.
My very successful 1%er Gen X friend asked me this question:
“Are you worried MMT will work?
Or are you worried that central banking / non free market economies will continue to prop up the economy indefinitely?
Because if that’s your concern then you have to let it go. That would indicate that MMT works.”
No I don’t think our current fiscal policies make any sense & I personally think that as we are just starting to put a name this Keynesianism extremism, it’s approaching the end of the runway.
He had a pragmatic response;
If it’s near the end of the road, buy bitcoin. If it’s not…well then carry on. Either way, you’re hedged.
I believe MMT is a rationalization by good people of a cancerous system of debt enslavement and taxation through inflation.
I think that if we continue using a system of MMT, it will actually continue to increases the wealth gap, putting more money into the pockets of the elite class.
“Never underestimate the complacency of the masses”
Gen Z is being raised to be global warming activists & champions of social justice, while being groomed for complacent about monetary policy, property rights & privacy rights.
I hope I’m wrong, but just in case I’m not, I’m glad we have bitcoin.
