There's a Buddhist story about a kid who is a great horseback rider, and everyone in the village says to the parents how lucky they are to have such a talented son. One day he falls off his horse, breaks his leg, and all the villagers lament how unlucky he is to break his leg. Then a war breaks out, and the other villagers’ sons are sent to die in it, but the kid with the broken leg can’t fight, so he survives.

The moral is obvious — that what seems like good luck is often bad and vice-versa.

Whenever I hear pending announcements of CBDCs I think of this. You can argue and explain decentralized, uncensorable, supply-capped money till you are blue in the face, but your impact will be zero compared to someone being unable to buy a plane ticket because the central bank deems him over his carbon allowance.

Christine Retard and her ilk are in the FA phase. They might be surprised by the FO one.