Business

This past Wednesday, we reported that in the latest twist of the energy sector collapse, liquidating oil and gas producers, and specifically their creditors, got a nasty lesson in trough cycle asset values when in one after another bankruptcy "stalking horse" aka 363 auction, they were not only unable to cover the outstanding debt (both secured and unsecured) through asset sales, but barely able to cover a tiny fraction of it.

The US government is to surrender its control of internet’s underlying technology this year, giving up the administration of Internet IPs & Domain Names and moving towards a more global governance. For the first time since American academics launched the network 47 years ago, the gate-keeping of online addresses will be decentralized to include foreign governments, businesses and individual users, in a symbolic move that is made to reflect the integrity of the system that allows access to the World Wide Web.

Ever since 2009, when we first showed how broken the capital markets are first at the micro level, thanks to the pervasive spread of parasitic, frontrunning algos, and then at the macro, as a result of constant, artificial central bank intervention and levitation, we have advised readers that the best option is to simply avoid rigged, manipulated markets altogether. Now, 7 years later, the world's richest people agree.

The war on cash is escalating faster than many had imagined. Having documented the growing calls from the elites and propagandist explanations of the "benefits" to their serfs over the last few years, with China, and The IMF entering the "cashless society" call most recently, International Business Times reports that Norway - suffering from its own economic collapse as oil revenues crash - has joined its Scandi peers Denmark and Sweden in a call to "ban cash."

By way of background, as we explained previously, What exactly does a “war on cash” mean?

Once upon a time, long before central planning, before "smart beta", and before various attorney generals busted Stevie Cohen's massive "expert network" insider trading pardon "information arbitrage" gig, hedge funds were spoken about in hushed tones of reverence, with special admiration reserved for their portfolio managers whose egos (and certainly bank accounts) promptly rose to the status of "financial god."