( Forbes) The U.S. today is running a budget deficit of 10% of GDP and has seen its debt-to-GDP ratio soar by 20 percentage points in under two years. PIMCO Co-CEO Mohamed El-Erian called the levels "unprecedented during peacetime" in an interview with Spiegel. PIMCO, as the company that runs one of the largest mutual funds in the world, also has the largest single fund investing in bonds, which includes government debt. Its opinion on U.S. debt may be telling, even as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke warned in a remark to the Congressional budget committee Wednesday that failing to reduce the deficit significantly could have catastrophic consequences for the U.S. in the near term.Read full story >>>
