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USA Edition | Today Is Monday, September 6, 2010 |
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| Browsing Business Section | 91 Items Found | ||
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Government Guarantees For The Wealthy Continue While Former Taxpayers Lose Savings, Homes And Jobs
So far this year, PIMCO Total Return has delivered nearly an 8% return for investors – far better performance than many asset managers wading through the broader stock and bond markets. Over the past year, it has delivered a 12.6% return and over the past 10 years, it’s delivered 7.4%, on an annualized basis.
PIMCO Total Return investors can thank taxpayers for most of those gains.Lauren Tara LaCapra
The Street.Com
Newport Beach, California
Ordinary Americans Underwrite PIMCO’s Sure-Winner Strategy
In the fallout from passage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation, proponents on both sides of the political debate have claimed some level or victory. When seen only for its political value, both sides have at the very least a prima-facie claim to victory.
Democrats Won, Republicans Won, You Lost
The Democrats won by way of forcing a massive expansion of government that promises to complicate financial services businesses with about the same precision and clarity as the nation’s behemoth and inexplicable tax-code. The Republicans also won for they worked in combination with Washington’s comfortable financial industries lobbyists and banking lobbies to nullify, remove or water-down the legislation so that financial institutions at home and abroad will not have to make any substantive change.
Dodd-Frank ought to be known as …
“the Lawyers’ and Consultants’ Full Employment Act of 2010.”
Harvey Pitt
Former chairman
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
There are some very real and important changes ahead for the nation’s banking and financial institutions. They will surely prove troublesome for some institutions until everyone gets used to the changes, or until the Republicans and lobbyists nullify or rescind some or all of them.
They will not, however, end the usurious interest charges and fee practices that so heavily burden America’s lowest income families. Nor will they end the largess afforded some institutions by way of legislative requirement ( the ratings agencies ), regulatory avoidance ( non-productive derivatives trading ), and lobbyist-driven governmental risk assumption.
Dodd-Frank Left All Americans At Risk
Ordinary Americans benefit in certain small ways under Dodd-Frank even as they will continue to remain oppressed and unevenly protected by government. No longer will banks be able to charge $39 fees for even the most minor deviation from a credit contract for which they can neither negotiate nor depend on competition to keep in check. Nearly every credit-card holder will benefit from the reduction while not realizing that the banks’ right to levy such onerous fees, as well as their one-sided power to redefine anyone’s credit card agreement at their sole discretion remain untouched.
But not all of the failings of Dodd-Frank are visible, for the machinations of government, by means of guarantees, set-asides, and bail-outs are immensely beneficial to banks and financial institutions — entirely at the cost of American taxpayers. Not all such institutions are of U.S. origin or domicile due to the globalization of finance and banking and the widespread ownership of nearly every publicly listed financial institution.
PIMCO Strategy — Demand Government Insure Debt
One of the foreign firms that our government will continue to subsidize is a German based insurance and financial services company known as Allianz — owner of Bill Gross’ $230 billion PIMCO Total Return Fund. Newport Beach based PIMCO is only one of Allianz’ U.S. financial services operations, but while other segments of Allianz business suffered from the down-slide in financial services, PIMCO has continued to earn an 8% return on equity in large measure by means of acquiring massive quantities of U.S. government guaranteed debt instruments.
PIMCO is not alone in pursuing such a strategy.
Your Congress, both parties and both houses, was happy to leave you at risk for every such holding.
And thousands of other special deals for America’s criminal financial services institutions that you’ve never heard about as well.