PIMCO’s Mohamed El-Erian says the odds of a new U.S. recession are between 33% and 50%. “This is a fragile economy,” El-Erian tells Bloomberg. “It doesn’t mean we don’t have strength. We certainly do. The corporate sector is as strong as we’ve ever seen it in terms of balance sheet. We have incredible entrepreneurial spirit. But we are facing all these structural headwinds.” He says the right tact for investors today is to be “generally defensive” and “selectively offensive” amid an environment of slow growth and political ineffectiveness. He says the U.S. has the ability to fix its problems, but is failing to do so because of a lack of political will.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-aHgfqH6ak]