in 1970 that the singer Kris Kristofferson coined the phrase ‘cleanest dirty shirt’ for one of his best-known songs, though it may be remembered better today as a Johnny Cash hit. Over the past decade, it went on to become a bond market classic, used by superstar bond fund managers like Mohamed El-Erian and Bill Gross. Of course, they used it to describe the US market, in the midst of a flailing global economy. Today, they would be hard-pressed to make such tall claims, with the US appearing to be no better than a soiled, stinking rag. Most people in the business world agree rather that the epithet now
