PIMCO's CEO Mohamed A. El-Erian uses the
Huffington Post to tell us how wonderful The Occupy Wall Street movement is.
In the US, it is about a system that privatized massive gains and then socialized huge losses; allowed bailed-out banks to resume past behavior with seemingly little regulatory and legal consequences; and is paralyzed when it comes to alleviating the suffering of victims, including millions of unemployed (too many of whom are becoming long-term unemployed, slipping into poverty, and losing access to safety nets). The result is a visible and growing gap between the haves and the have-nots in today's America.
El-Erian really has some nerve because he's hoped you forgot
this 2008 story (from the L.A. Times) about his PIMCO colleague Bill Gross who "demanded" and got a bailout of Fannie and Freddie:
So how does $200 billion sound? I asked Gross today.
"We like it," he said. "We think it’s a positive step."
Gross has been agitating for months for a bigger federal role in bailing out the sinking housing market. He acknowledges his critics, who say he’s "talking his book": Because Pimco is a huge investor in mortgage-backed bonds of Fannie and Freddie, the firm and its mutual funds stand to benefit now that the government is stepping in to assure that the companies stay solvent. Pimco also will be helped as the Treasury begins to buy mortgage-backed bonds in the open market.
Does El-Erian feel guilty about directly benefitting from looting federal taxpayers ? Just how dumb does El-Erian think Huffington Post readers are?
