Business

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."

Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

This week brought another reason to get out of the casino, and to sell it short if you can tolerate some volatility.

On Friday the Japanese stock market ripped 6% higher and the European bourses were up 5% because their respective central bankers emitted some hints of more easing just ahead. Even the US market managed to find green for the week.

Norway’s largest bank, DNB says that banking is now outdated and cash should be completely phased out.  Citing the “dangers and disadvantages” of cash, an executive from the bank said that Norway should start the process of becoming cashless straight away. The Local.no reports: Norway’s largest bank, DNB, has said that cash has fallen out of favour with everyday Norwegians and is instead primarily used on the black market and in laundering schemes. “Today, there is approximately 50 billion kroner in circulation and [central bank] Norges Bank can only account for 40 percent of its use.

Unlike Goldman's cross asset strategists, whose six Top Trade recommendations for 2016 have gotten destroyed three weeks into the year, with half of them already stopped out as we showed yesterday, the bank's chief equity strategist David Kostin has been notably more accurate in his predictions, with his conservative 2015 year end target of 2000 on the S&P almost exactly where the stock market ended.

Since then stocks have taken a sharp leg lower, with the S&P dropping as much as 15% from its all time high, half the average post-war recession drawdown.