Neel Kashkari On the Ireland, the EU, and GM

Neel Kashkari, head of new investment initiative at PIMCO and former assistant to the Treasury, appeared as a guest host on Bloomberg Television's "InBusiness with Margaret Brennan" this morning. Kashkari discussed his thoughts on the resounding success of the GM bailout. Notably, he spoke about the problems with Ireland, saying, "There's almost no question that there's going to be a bailout of Ireland even though the Irish are reluctant. It will happen but the question is, what is it a bridge to? They're going to announce a bridge loan. They'll buy themselves time. What's the ultimate resolution? Many of these countries have way too much debt. They have a capital problem that's manifesting itself as a liquidity problem. Liquidity is not a solution to a capital problem." When commenting on General Motors, Mr. Kashkari said, "It's great here in the U.S. that GM is now showing real signs of health. I didn't expect that when we did the bail-outs of GM and Chrysler; I didn't know if we'd get any money back. And so I think it's a great thing that the taxpayers are going to get much of their money back, hopefully all of it. But the question is, is GM making cars people want to buy that? And we're not going to know that for a number of years."