World's Biggest Bond Fund Manager: Bush plan is a scam.

[reprehensor]

A manufactured crisis, I'd say, something like Iraq's non-existent WMDs.

Manager of biggest bond fund contends individual accounts not the answer, wants deficit reduction.

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Bill Gross, manager of the world's largest bond fund, is criticizing President Bush's plan to privatize part of Social Security.

Gross, managing director at Pimco, called the argument about the solvency of Social Security "silly" and said it was an example of the president not focusing on more important issues, such as the budget deficit.

The president's argument for individual Social Security accounts is meant "to promote an agenda that has little to do with seniors and more to do with Bush, his ownership society, and ultimately his domestic legacy alongside the likes of Ronald Reagan and FDR," Gross wrote in comments posted on Pimco's Web site.

"Without a blockbuster of a program in his second term it is unlikely that Bush can go very far in the history books on the back of a paltry 3 or 4 percentage point tax cut for the rich," Gross wrote.

"Presto!" he continued. "We now have partial privatization of Social Security heading the agenda upon which the president intends to spend his well-advertised political capital."

more@link

[moggie12]

1. This guy is listened to on Wall Street -- this is good

He's THE bond guru

[CountAllVotes]

2. * needs to rob social security to pay for his ugly war

and that is the bottom line. Anyone that buys into this scam is as evil as the doer.

:kick:

[Turbineguy]

3. If Bill Gross says

it's so, it's so.

My opinion.

[dray178355]

7. Another interesting article

They're ganging up on dollar

Almost posted this in breaking news but I don't know if it qualifies. Kind of interesting though.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/businessnews/ci_2557391

THE dollar can add the world's two richest men to its list of detractors, something that's raising eyebrows here in Asia.
Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., left no doubt of that, telling television host Charlie Rose "I'm short the dollar." The world's wealthiest man called the record $7.62 trillion federal debt "a bit scary" and lamented that the U.S. is in "uncharted territory" fiscally.

And he's right. Just ask Warren Buffett, the world's No. 2 moneyman, who has been buying foreign currencies since 2002, citing concerns about the U.S. deficit. The bet is paying off, too. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. reaped a $412 million pretax gain on the trade in the third quarter of 2004.

Gates and Buffett may not be reading from the same playbook as George Soros, though their investments bear some similarities. Financier Soros has long since given up on the world's reserve currency, and U.S. President George W. Bush's competence on economic matters.

<snip>

more at link

[reprehensor]

4. Revenge of the Bond Traders

Revenge of the Bond Traders

By Robert B. Reich
Web Exclusive: 02.04.05

President Bush's agenda, as outlined in his State of the Union, is certainly ambitious. You may think that the president's success enacting it depends on how many votes he can round up in Congress. This is the standard way of viewing the political process, but it leaves out a constituency that may play the most important role. I'm talking about Wall Street bond traders.

Remember, the bond traders were the ones who forced Bill Clinton to scale back his ambitious plan for public investments in education and health care. They even turned Clinton into a deficit hawk. I saw it with my own eyes. The same bond traders may force George W. Bush to back down on his plans, too.

You see, Wall Street is divided right down the center lane. On the equity side of the street are the buyers and sellers of securities in brokerage firms and mutual fund companies. They're all for the Bush agenda because it will put more money in their pockets. Not only will they get more tax cuts on unearned income, but they also stand to rake in hundreds of millions in management fees on all those privatized Social Security accounts.

But on the other side of Wall Street are the bond traders, and they think differently. They're beginning to worry about the size of the deficits likely to result from Bush's plans, just like they worried about Clinton's potential deficits. They've heard estimates of the trillions of dollars the government will have to borrow over the next decade in order to privatize Social Security, not to mention making Bush's tax cuts permanent.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

[Moderator]

5. reprehensor

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
paragraphs from the
copyrighted news source.


Thank you.


DU Moderator

[reprehensor]

6. Americans Wary of Stocks for Social Security -Poll

Americans Wary of Stocks for Social Security -Poll

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fifty-six percent of Americans think the stock market is too risky for Social Security funds, according to a Newsweek poll released on Saturday.

The poll signaled a tough sell for President Bush as he promotes his plans to change Social Security and allow workers to shift part of their payroll taxes into private stock and bond accounts.

The 56 percent who were wary of putting retirement money into the stock market contrasted with 36 percent who said such investing was a "necessary risk to improve the rate of return of Social Security funds."

Bush made his bid to remake the 70-year-old Social Security program the centerpiece of his State of the Union address on Wednesday. Then he set off on a two-day trip to pitch his plan in North Dakota, Montana, Nebraska, Arkansas and Florida, all of which supported him in the November election.

more@link

[reprehensor]

8. Ix-Nay on the Rivatization-Pay

hitandrun


Greg Crist, director of communications for the House Republican Conference, liked my column on Social Security. Well, most of it. As he explained in an e-mail message, he did not care for my use of certain explicit language that he feels has no place in public discussion of the president's reform plan:

Every day, we fight reporters and Democrats for using the term 'privatization' b/c every poll worth its salt shows it frightens the public.

And here you write a great article, but use the term in the headline and everywhere else!

Can you help us out please? Dems love to demagogue. We shouldn't help them.