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• There is in England more labor than hands to perform it, and consequently a want of people, not of employment.
• No man in England, of sound limbs and senses, can be poor merely for want of work.
• All our workhouses, corporations and charities for employing the poor, and setting them to work, as now they are employed, or any Acts of Parliament, to empower overseers of parishes, or parishes themselves, to employ the poor, except as shall be hereafter excepted, are, and will be public nuisances, mischiefs to the nation which serve to the ruin of families and the increase of the poor.
• That it is a regulation of the poor that is wanted in England, not a setting them to work.

The poverty and exigence of the poor in England is plainly derived from one of these two particular causes — casualty or crime. By casualty, I mean sickness of families, loss of limbs or sight, and any, either natural or accidental, impotence as to labor. The crimes of our people, and from whence their poverty derives, as the visible and direct fountains are

• Luxury
• Sloth
• Pride

source Mises.org

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As observant readers will recall, a week ago we pointed out a letter in which the New York Fed’s Steven Manzari instructed AIG to stand down on all discussions with counterparties on “tearing up/unwinding CDS trades on the CDO portfolio.” At the time we focused on the word “stand down” as an indication of the Fed’s lead role in the process. At this point there is no doubt that the FRBNY, together with its law firm, Davis Polk, were in the pilot’s seat during the entire AIG negotiation, and while Tim Geithner may not have been the responsible man for this, someone must have been - and for the record, our money is a double or nothing on recently promoted FRBNY Senior Vice President Sarah Dahlgren, who as of January 21st is in charge of the Fed’s Special Investments [AIG] Management Group. We sure hope Sarah gets the chance to recall her memories beginning in the fateful month of September 2008 when she became the person in charge of the FRBNY’s AIG relationship. But back to the letter - little did we know that our focus was on the right sentence… but on the wrong word. What should have struck us front and center, was Habayeb’s admission that contract “tear downs” had been evaluated. This means that someone, aside from AIG, must have expressed an interest in a tear down, which if true would have dramatic consequences for the entire AIG debacle. Today, the WSJ presented the missing piece of the puzzle. In tonight’s Heard On The Street section, the WSJ notes:

As everybody knows, AIG got a huge government bailout in September 2008 to help make payments on derivatives contracts with banks, including Goldman. Yet in the previous month, Goldman approached AIG about “tearing up” its contracts, according to a November 2008 analysis by BlackRock, then an adviser to the New York Fed. So was Goldman prepared to offer AIG a haircut in the month before its rescue? A legitimate question, given that Goldman refused to accept such a cut when the New York Fed raised the idea after it bailed out AIG.

The implications of this discovery are huge as they essentially destroy all the arguments presented by the FRBNY about an inability to extract concession out of Goldman (which being the largest AIG CDO counterparty, was the critical negotiating factor). It also casts doubt on the veracity of any arguments presented in Congress by Goldman representatives discussing the potential to take a haircut on their AIG exposure. What this means in plain English is that, in the month before the Fed entered the scene, GOLDMAN SACHS ITSELF OFFERED TO TEAR DOWN THE CDS ON AIG’S CDO PORTFOLIO (we don’t use caps lock lightly). This is basically a smoking gun on the moral hazard issue perpetrated by the FRBNY when it got involved, and indicates that through their involvement, Tim Geithner, Sarah Dahlgren or whoever, not only did not save US taxpayers’ money, but in fact ended up costing money, when they funded the marginal difference between par (the make whole price given to all AIG counterparties after AIG was told to back off in its negotiations) and whatever discount would have been applicable to the contract tear down that had been proposed by Goldman a mere month earlier. This, more so than anything presented up to now, is the true scandal behind the New York Fed’s involvement.

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by Albert Edwards, Societe Generale

Mr Bernanke’s in-house Fed economists have found that the Fed wasn’t responsible for the boom which subsequently turned into the biggest bust since the 1930s. Are those the same Fed staffers whose research led Mr Bernanke to assert in Oct. 2005 that “there was no housing bubble to go bust”? The reasons for the US and the UK central banks inflating the bubble range from incompetence and negligence to just plain spinelessness. Let me propose an alternative thesis. Did the US and UK central banks collude with the politicians to ‘steal’ their nations’ income growth from the middle classes and hand it to the very rich?

Ben Bernanke?s recent speech at the American Economic Association made me feel sick. Like Alan Greenspan, he is still in denial. The pigmies that populate the political and monetary elites prefer to genuflect to the court of public opinion in a pathetic attempt to deflect blame from their own gross and unforgivable incompetence.

The US and UK have seen a huge rise in inequality over the last two decades, as growth in national income has been diverted almost exclusively to the top income earners (see chart below). The middle classes have seen median real incomes stagnate over that period and, as a consequence, corporate margins and profits have boomed.

Some recent reading has got me thinking as to whether the US and UK central banks were actively complicit in an aggressive re-distributive policy benefiting the very rich. Indeed, it has been amazing how little political backlash there has been against the stagnation of ordinary people?s earnings in the US and UK. Did central banks, in creating housing bubbles, help distract middle class attention from this re-distributive policy by allowing them to keep consuming via equity extraction? The emergence of extreme inequality might never otherwise have been tolerated by the electorate (see chart below). And now the bubbles have burst, along with central banks? credibility, what now?

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The root of the current financial crisis was an artificially induced boom in the real economy, and asset-price markets that subsequently turned to bust. The bust led to a reduction in the values of many assets owned by banks.

Thus, the banking sector found itself crippled by insolvency problems, consequently causing liquidity problems. The readjustment of the economy and relative asset prices cannot be solved by increasing the quantity of money or shifting bad assets from banks’ balance sheets to central banks’ balance sheets.

The problem can only be solved by acknowledging it. Turning bank creditors into equity holders would fix the banks’ solvency problems and would increase confidence in the financial sector, thus also improving the liquidity situation.

If this is done, the balance-sheet policies of quantitative and qualitative easing can be reversed by selling the bad assets, buying back the good assets, and refusing to roll over emergency loans. Otherwise, the policies cannot be undone without instigating the breakdown of the financial system or risking hyperinflation.

Philipp Bagus

Mise.org

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The United States Mint will not offer the following products in 2009:  the one-ounce American Eagle Silver Proof Coin; the one-ounce American Eagle Silver Uncirculated Coin; the American Eagle Gold Proof Coins (all weights, as well as the four-coin set); the one-ounce American Eagle Gold Uncirculated Coin; the United States Mint Annual Uncirculated Dollar Coin SetTM, which also includes a one-ounce American Eagle Silver Uncirculated Coin; and the American Eagle Platinum Bullion Coins (all weights).

Because of unprecedented demand for American Eagle Gold and Silver Bullion Coins, the United States Mint suspended production of 2009 proof and uncirculated versions of these coins.   All available 22-karat gold and silver bullion blanks are being allocated to the American Eagle Gold and American Eagle Silver Bullion Coin Programs, as mandated by Public Law 99-185 and Public Law 99-61, respectively.  Both laws direct the agency to produce these coins in quantities sufficient to meet public demand.  The proof and uncirculated versions of the American Eagle Gold and Silver Proof Coins are not mandated by law.

The Mint does promise to promptly reevaluate the supply/demand curve for gold and to allow the public to avoid having to keep its holding in the dollar:

The United States Mint is working diligently with current and potential blank suppliers to increase the supply of bullion coin blanks, so it can offer to the public the proof and uncirculated versions of American Eagle silver, gold, and platinum coins in 2010.

One wonders if the Federal Reserve will have anything to say about that. One also wonders if today’s action by the Mint is merely a preamble to the modern version of this particular Presidential Executive Order 6102:

I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, do declare that said national emergency still continues to exist and pursuant to said section to do hereby prohibit the hoarding gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States by individuals, partnerships, associations and corporations and hereby prescribe the following regulations for carrying out the purposes of the order:

Section 1. For the purpose of this regulation, the term ‘hoarding” means the withdrawal and withholding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates from the recognized and customary channels of trade. The term “person” means any individual, partnership, association or corporation.

Section 2. All persons are hereby required to deliver on or before May 1, 1933, to a Federal Reserve bank or a branch or agency thereof or to any member bank of the Federal Reserve System all gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates now owned by them or coming into their ownership on or before April 28, 1933, except the following:

(a) Such amount of gold as may be required for legitimate and customary use in industry, profession or art within a reasonable time, including gold prior to refining and stocks of gold in reasonable amounts for the usual trade requirements of owners mining and refining such gold.

(b) Gold coin and gold certificates in an amount not exceeding in the aggregate $100.00 belonging to any one person; and gold coins having recognized special value to collectors of rare and unusual coins.

(c) Gold coin and bullion earmarked or held in trust for a recognized foreign government or foreign central bank or the Bank for International Settlements.

(d) Gold coin and bullion licensed for the other proper transactions (not involving hoarding) including gold coin and gold bullion imported for the re-export or held pending action on applications for export license.

Section 3. Until otherwise ordered any person becoming the owner of any gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates after April 28, 1933, shall within three days after receipt thereof, deliver the same in the manner prescribed in Section 2; unless such gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates are held for any of the purposes specified in paragraphs (a),(b) or (c) of Section 2; or unless such gold coin, gold bullion is held for purposes specified in paragraph (d) of Section 2 and the person holding it is, with respect to such gold coin or bullion, a licensee or applicant for license pending action thereon.

Section 4. Upon receipt of gold coin, gold bullion, or gold certificates delivered to it in accordance with Section 2 or 3, the Federal reserve bank or member bank will pay thereof an equivalent amount of any other form of coin or currency coined or issued under the laws of the Unites States.

Section 5. Member banks shall deliver alt gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned or received by them (other than as exempted under the provisions of Section 2) to the Federal reserve banks of there respective districts and receive credit or payment thereof.

Section 6. The Secretary of the Treasury, out of the sum made available to the President by Section 501 of the Act of March 9, 1933, will in all proper cases pay the reasonable costs of transportation of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates delivered to a member bank or Federal reserve bank in accordance with Sections 2, 3, or 5 hereof, including the cost of insurance, protection, and such other incidental costs as may be necessary, upon production of satisfactory evidence of such costs. Voucher forms for this purpose may be procured from Federal reserve banks.

Section 7. In cases where the delivery of gold coin, gold bullion, or gold certificates by the owners thereof within the time set forth above will involve extraordinary hardship or difficulty, the Secretary of the Treasury may, in his discretion, extend the time within which such delivery must be made. Applications for such extensions must be made in writing under oath; addressed to the Secretary of the Treasury and filed with a Federal reserve bank. Each applications must state the date to which the extension is desired, the amount and location of the gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates in respect of which such application is made and the facts showing extension to be necessary to avoid extraordinary hardship or difficulty.

Section 8. The Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized and empowered to issue such further regulations as he may deem necessary to carry the purposes of this order and to issue licenses there under, through such officers or agencies as he may designate, including licenses permitting the Federal reserve banks and member banks of the Federal Reserve System, in return for an equivalent amount of other coin, currency or credit, to deliver, earmark or hold in trust gold coin or bullion to or for persons showing the need for same for any of the purposes specified in paragraphs (a), (c), and (d) of Section 2 of these regulations.

Section 9. Whoever willfully violates any provision of this Executive Order or these regulation or of any rule, regulation or license issued there under may be fined not more than $10,000, or,if a natural person may be imprisoned for not more than ten years or both; and any officer, director, or agent of any corporation who knowingly participates in any such violation may be punished by a like fine, imprisonment, or both.

h/t Project Mayhem

this article published on Zerohedge

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It looks like 1080 on the S&P is an intermediate-term high, with the potential to become a major multi-month—dare I say year—high. Sell the pigs that flew the highest in this rally now.

To sell the rally you must have tried to buy it first—the other option is a perma-bear situation that is not advisable at any point. Neither is a perma-bull.

I have tried to buy it, therefore, I sold it a couple of days before we hit 1080. How, it’s not important. The more important takeaway here from an intermediate-term perspective is not to short bonds, to look to sell equity rallies, and to look for bond spreads to widen for the inventory rebound that the economy is experiencing is running out of steam. Complicated Numerous strategies that fit those themes can be easily devised.

The next leg down could retest or take out the low on the S&P 500. Book value on the index is in the 500s and we have seen it trade below book value before. Whether that happens in 2010 or much later, I cannot see that far…

Here are some charts that are beginning to show that major turning point. Markets can deviate substantially from the underlying fundamental picture, but they always gravitate back to it.

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