In 1999, a European company named Allianz bought a 70 percent interest in local money management firm Pimco. They also offered our neighbor, Bill Gross, $200 million over five years to stick around and manage this huge bond fund. He’s still there, so somebody must consider him an expert on the international financial markets. Here’s a brief extract from the Bloomberg Financial website:
“The U.S. Treasury is the center of the global financial complex,” Gross, manager of the world’s biggest bond fund, said during a Bloomberg Television interview with Trish Regan and Adam Johnson. A default would be “unimaginable,” as it would have “catastrophic” consequences on U.S. borrowing costs, and would trigger a “complex series of events worldwide” that would ripple through global financial markets.”
Meanwhile, through our elected representative, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, we all voted to send the country over the financial brink into the abyss. Rohrabacher voted on your behalf to not raise the debt ceiling.
There’s a lesson somewhere in here and we don’t have to go outside the city limits to get some expert advice to follow. Maybe it’s time for some financially savvy local conservative to challenge Rohrabacher in the 2014 election so we locals don’t have to participate in this absurd comedy every three or four months.
