Bill Gross passes on PPIP

Poor Bill Gross! Even after the New York Times devoted pages of its magazine to a puff piece about him and his upcoming role in the latest government project to further enrich a few dozen Wall Street billionaires, he still did not make the cut. But he claims that his $747 billion bond fund decided to pass on participating in the Public Private Investment Partnership (PPIP).

I had the pleasure of receiving an email from Gross in February after I appeared on a TV program to question why he was able to both trade in government and GSE bonds, even as he managed government programs designed to prop up the debt markets. This TV program came after a Fortune article, in which I raised questions about how much money he was making off this dual role.