For those of you keeping up at home, we’ve moved on from the ‘US policymakers are praying mantises biting our heads off after sex‘ metaphor (they’re now Satan, according to BG).

This country desperately requires a rebalancing of priorities. After readjusting the compensation scales via regulation and/or free market common sense, America needs to anoint a new set of Mensans who can create something more than a cash machine and make this country competitive again in the global marketplace. We need to find a new economic Keynes or at least elect a chastened Congress that can take our structurally unemployed and give them a chance to be productive workers again. We must have a President whose idea of “centrist” policy is not to hand out presents to the right and the left and then altruistically proclaim the benefits of bipartisanship. We need a President who does more than propose “Win The Future” at annual State of the Union addresses without policy follow-up. America requires more than a makeover or a facelift. It needs a heart transplant absent the contagious antibodies of money and finance filtering through the system. It needs a Congress that cannot be bought and sold by lobbyists on K Street, whose pockets in turn are stuffed with corporate and special interest group payola. Are record corporate profits a fair price for America’s soul? A devil’s bargain more than likely.

Devil’s Bargain [PIMCO]

Comments (32)

  1. Posted by Chuddy | February 2, 2011 at 4:37 PM

    Please add my name to that transplant list

    ~ Charlie Sheen

  2. Posted by Guest | February 2, 2011 at 4:40 PM

    Totally believable coming from a man who’s benefited tremendously from said policies over the years.

  3. Posted by Guest | February 2, 2011 at 4:41 PM

    so he knows what he’s talking about?

  4. Posted by Guest | February 2, 2011 at 4:43 PM

    In an ironic yet cynical sort of way…yes.

  5. Posted by Guest | February 2, 2011 at 4:47 PM

    It reads better if you imagine the “Can Geico save you 15% or more on car insurance?” guy reading it out loud.

  6. Posted by Guest | February 2, 2011 at 4:51 PM

    Ewww! Gross!

  7. Posted by Guest | February 2, 2011 at 4:55 PM

    want to give us a hint as to what you’re ‘ewww’ing? the praying mantis metaphor? the photo of BG that looks like he just came off a 3 day bender?

    also, the 14 yo girl chat room is down the hall.

  8. Posted by CoveredLong | February 2, 2011 at 4:55 PM

    “Are record corporate profits a fair price for America’s soul? A devil’s bargain more than likely.”

    …those actually tend to work out pretty well, just saying.

    -Charlie Daniels

  9. Posted by not the UBS sucks guy | February 2, 2011 at 5:01 PM

    He should work for UBS, have the Winsor knot in the manual

  10. Posted by Seaman Bodine | February 2, 2011 at 5:07 PM

    This guy sits in Orange County chanting OM to himself under the ludicrous pretense that anyone on this planet ought to have management over a trillion dollars of benign, emasculated, unproductive debt.

  11. Posted by Seaman Bodine | February 2, 2011 at 5:09 PM

    BTW a much better analogy is that America is Charlie Sheen, or he is us.

  12. Posted by Chris Hansen | February 2, 2011 at 5:13 PM

    How do you know where the 14-year-old girl chat room is?

  13. Posted by Holden Herman | February 2, 2011 at 5:14 PM

    FUCK NO POLE SMOKER

  14. Posted by Pfluger the Barbarian | February 2, 2011 at 5:14 PM

    We need “annointed Mensans”????? I thought that was what Obama was bringing to the table.

  15. Posted by trojan | February 2, 2011 at 5:18 PM

    Instead of accepting historical durational risk and the prospect of a barbershop quartet of possible haircuts, bondholders should recognize that yield or “spread” comes in different varieties. Maturity extension is just one of them, yet if yields are too low based on historical example, an investor should analyze other yields or other “spreads” which are not. That is what we call “safe spread” – the recognition that credit spreads, or emerging market returns, or currencies with positive and high real interest rates are more attractive than those old-fashioned gilts and Treasury bonds offering 2–3%. Those are markets that need to be “exorcised” from model portfolios and replaced with more attractive alternatives both from a risk and a reward standpoint. It is still possible to produce 4–5% returns from a conservatively positioned bond portfolio – you just have to do it with a different mix of global assets.

    -well look at that… risk-on…learn something new everyday

  16. Posted by Texashedge | February 2, 2011 at 5:24 PM

    His treatise on automatic flushing was pretty gross.

  17. Posted by Texashedge | February 2, 2011 at 5:24 PM

    His treatise on automatic flushing was pretty gross.

  18. Posted by Texashedge | February 2, 2011 at 5:24 PM

    “I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast!”

  19. Posted by Texashedge | February 2, 2011 at 5:24 PM

    “I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast!”

  20. Posted by AIG Quant | February 2, 2011 at 5:42 PM

    Why do people with menstrual cycles need “annointing”?

  21. Posted by Anonymous | February 2, 2011 at 5:45 PM

    (original end of sentence, deleted from last draft): “It is still possible to produce 4-5% returns… you just have to do it with a different mix of global assets; or, failing that, control so much of the fixed income market THAT YOU CAN MAKE IT MOVE THE WAY YOU WANT! DANCE PUPPETS, DANCE! BWWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!”

  22. Posted by Guest | February 2, 2011 at 5:48 PM

    Did you hedge your mw-hr pricing for today?

  23. Posted by Guest | February 2, 2011 at 5:48 PM

    Did you hedge your mw-hr pricing for today?

  24. Posted by Mmm Brains | February 2, 2011 at 6:32 PM

    Everytime I see this photo of BGross, I think zombie movie like “Dawn of the Dead” or “28 Days Later”

    Could PIMCO’s secret of success in bonds be eating human brains?

  25. Posted by Guest | February 2, 2011 at 6:34 PM

    Boy, its pretty foggy here in NYC.

  26. Posted by trojan | February 2, 2011 at 6:48 PM

    more like the evil preacher from Poltergeist II

  27. Posted by Bored | February 2, 2011 at 7:08 PM

    I stopped reading at “instead”

  28. Posted by Dr Duration | February 2, 2011 at 7:20 PM

    Great movie, no corporates for old people

  29. Posted by PB | February 2, 2011 at 7:51 PM

    Come on Bill, there are a lot more important problems than Treasury bonds to worry about.

    We have to end apartheid for one. And slow down the nuclear arms race, stop terrorism and world hunger. We have to provide food and shelter for the homeless, and oppose racial discrimination and promote civil rights, while also promoting equal rights for women. We have to encourage a return to traditional moral values. Most importantly, we have to promote general social concern and less materialism in young people.

    -PB

  30. Posted by dman | February 2, 2011 at 7:56 PM

    Since we’re on the subject: what was your compensation last year, Bill?

  31. Posted by Texashedge | February 2, 2011 at 8:32 PM

    Ha! Certainly had to dust off those peakers.

  32. Posted by Gnat | February 2, 2011 at 9:11 PM

    TLDR

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