Bill Gross - The Gang Who Couldn’t Talk Straight

[realFedUp]

excerpts from
"Something is happening."
www.newsforreal.com
Stephen Pizzo

Clue #2:
If you have more than two discretionary nickels to rub together you've heard of PIMCO, the investment firm. PIMCO is hardly a hotbed of socialist thought. The company is one of the largest investment firms in the world, with more than $590 billion in assets under management.

So, when PIMCO's managing director, Bill Gross, talks about money, those with money listen. And Bill did just that this week on PIMCO's own web site.
http://www.pimco.com/LeftNav/Late+Breaking+Commentary/IO/2006/IO+March+2006.htm

snip-
“A copy of the annual Economic Report of the President arrived at my desk the other day.... It’s not so much that the report was a compilation of untruths or even half-truths. It’s just that it failed to tell the truth, the whole truth, and most definitely nothing but the truth. If there were WMD in our economic future, you’d be hard pressed to find them here. Mild innuendos about global and demographic challenges yes, but nothing that couldn’t or wouldn’t be overcome with good old American ingenuity, hard work, and a fawning foreign investment public nearly trampling each other to get their hands on attractive U.S. "investments." Nowhere to be found was the catchy phrase à la Tennessee Williams referring to the "kindness of strangers" or a suggestion of "living on borrowed time."

Ah, but that, it seems to me, was the critical rub. Have we, can we, will we use capital to foster future growth or must we earmark it for future liabilities that have been under-reserved? Have we borrowed from the future to pay for today’s party and will our future creditors allow us to pay it back on our own terms with low yields and a strong dollar? While the gang that couldn’t shoot (or talk) straight expressed few doubts, I as you can probably tell, have mine. (Full Essay Here)
(Audio Version Here)

Well! How about that? A guy who manages over half a trillion bucks of other people's money saying such startling things right out loud! Normally Wall Street folk avoid saying anything that might spook the sheep. They like to play up the positive and brush aside the negative. It's only when disaster looms too close for comfort that they shout “fire” -- usually over their shoulder after they clear the exit first.

Bill Gross' essay is chilling confirmation that the Bush economy is but a hollow tree. It may look okay on the surface, but one strong storm and it'll come crashing to earth. I've suspected it was so from the very start. Now it's being said by folks with a vested interest in the tree. Something is happening.

[Demeter]

1. Buyer's Remorse?

Or the dawning suspicion that they've been played for suckers, sold a pig in a poke, been beaten at their own game, traded their birthright for a mess of pottage, and started the next great Socialist Revolution which will make France of 1789-1799 look like a walk in the park?

Or maybe the Market's down a few points. Or maybe it's just gas (pun intended).

[realFedUp]

2. I'm wondering when people wake up to US currency is all paper, no cattle.