April 2 – Dow Jones:

“Bridgewater Associates has decided against participating in the Treasury’s plan to get private investors to buy banks’ toxic assets, The New York Post reported… Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio cited economic and political concerns with the Public-Private Investment Program.’When the program was first announced, we were originally interested’ because the leverage the government was promising made the assets cheaper, Dalio wrote. ‘However, as things now stand, very little leverage is actually being offered via the ‘Legacy Securities Program,’” he wrote… He also said the program is ripe for conflicts. ‘The managers are clearly in a conflict-of-interest position because they have both the government and the investors to please and because they will get their fees regardless of how these investments turn out,’ Dalio wrote. He also questioned the program’s political risks, saying the limited number of managers ‘raises possibilities (or at least perceived possibilities) of them colluding because they all know each other.’”