The public-to-private sector "revolving door" has crossed into the macabre twilight zone.
Moments ago an announcement by giant bond manager (technically, these days "merely above average height" bond manager, considering the collapse in the TRF's AUM since Bill Gross' departure over a year ago) revealed that public service cronyism is not only alive, but has never been better, when in a press release it reported that former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, ex-U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and former ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet will form the backbone of a "global advisory board" at Pimco.
Bernanke, Trichet and Brown, along with Ng Kok Song, former chief investment officer of Singapore’s GIC Pte, and Anne-Marie Slaughter, an ex-director of policy planning for the U.S. State Department, will provide Pimco their “collective view on global economic, political and strategic developments and their relevance for financial markets,” the Newport Beach, California-based firm said in a statement Monday.
Translation: PIMCO is absolutely clueless how to trade in these centrally-planned markets and is hoping that those who created said "markets" can share some insight on how to actually generate some profits instead of suffering 14, or is it 15 consecutive months of PIMCO Total Return Fund capital outflows, where the Bill Gross departure may have been the worst thing to ever happen to the Newport Beach-based bond fund.
Which should make one wonder: in hopes of landing such lucrative 7 - 9 figure private sector jobs with funds like Pimco and Citadel, just who are public sector employees working for?
After all, they know they have to make a favorable impression on their future employers (read: make them lots of money) which is only possible at the expense of taxpayers, so just when will the taxpaying public rise up and ask how much longer will this farce of a "public servant" serving the public instead of their future very private sector employees, continue?
For now, these three are praying that nothing happens to the corrupt status quo that will soon generate them millions in wages.
Here is the press release:
PIMCO Creates Global Advisory Board Of Five Leading Global Economic and Policy Experts
PIMCO, a leading global investment management firm, has retained five world-renowned experts on economic and political issues to form a PIMCO Global Advisory Board. The Board members will contribute their insights to the firm on global economic, political, and strategic developments and their relevance for financial markets. The members of the Board are Ben Bernanke (who will serve as chairman), Gordon Brown, Ng Kok Song, Anne-Marie Slaughter and Jean-Claude Trichet.
The Board will meet several times a year at PIMCO’s Newport Beach office as well as at other PIMCO offices around the world. The members will also attend the firm’s annual Secular Forum in May of each year, where PIMCO’s investment professionals discuss the economic outlook and its implications for markets over the next three to five years. Together, the Board members will contribute their economic, geopolitical, and market expertise and insights to the firm’s investment process.
The Global Advisory Board members:
- Ben Bernanke , former Federal Reserve Chairman and scholar at the Brookings Institution.
- Gordon Brown , former U.K Prime Minister and former Chancellor of the Exchequer.
- Ng Kok Song, former Chief Investment Officer of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC).
- Anne-Marie Slaughter , President and CEO of New America, Bert G. Kerstetter '66 University Professor Emerita of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, and former Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. State Department.
- Jean-Claude Trichet, former President of the European Central Bank and present chairman of the European group of the Trilateral Commission.
“The Global Advisory Board is an unrivalled team of macroeconomic thinkers and former policymakers, whose insights into the intersection of policy and financial markets will be a valuable input to our investment process,” said Dan Ivascyn, PIMCO’s Group Chief Investment Officer.
“Sharing insights on how global macroeconomic and geopolitical policy affects markets and investments is an important part of the value we bring to investors as stewards of their assets, so our clients will benefit greatly from the experience and insight the Global Advisory Board will provide to us,” said Douglas Hodge, PIMCO’s Chief Executive Officer.
Dr. Bernanke, Chair of the PIMCO Global Advisory Board and senior advisor to the firm, said: “I am honored to chair a Board of individuals I hold in the highest esteem. We are all excited by the opportunity to provide PIMCO’s strong team of investment professionals with our collective view on how global economic, political, and strategic developments will affect markets and PIMCO’s clients.”
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And since we can only assume Bernanke will retain his existing job at Citadel we wonder: will he high frequency frontrun the retail public's purchases in the S&P on even numbered days, while spoofing the German 2 Year Bund further into record negative territory on odd days?