The twist, of course, is that the Obama administration has embraced the same public-private partnership proposal that Pimco has been pushing along and that Mr. Paulson briefly considered last fall. Mr. Gross says that the Geithner plan is better because the government provides such generous debt financing.

Pimco is proud of its partnership with the government. Mr. Erian points out that the firm’s executives have been members of the Treasury Department’s Borrowing Advisory Committee (along with many other Wall Street executives) for years. Its current representative, the Pimco managing director Paul McCulley, says part of his job is to ingratiate himself with officials at the Treasury and the Federal Reserve so Pimco can better understand impending policy decisions. He boasts that he is on a “first-name basis” with both Mr. Geithner and the Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke.

“We have a whole lot bigger profile now than we did years ago, but the fact of the matter is we’ve been doing the same thing in the last year that we’ve been doing for the last 10 years,” Mr. McCulley says. “I’d like to think we’re having some influence in the public policy arena. And I say that first and foremost as a citizen.”

Citizen  but also investor. And some critics of the financial benefits that Pimco might snare if the P.P.I.P. gets rolling are quick to point out what Pimco stands to gain.

“The critics would argue that all the benefits go to Pimco,” says Representative Scott Garrett, Republican of New Jersey, who is a member of the House Financial Services Committee and a skeptic of the Geithner plan. “Well, maybe not all the benefits. But they get the best ones right out the door. And the taxpayers are on the hook.”

The Obama administration says it will soon select lead fund managers for P.P.I.P. It’s almost certain that Pimco will be among them. “If you are trying to encourage investment from the private sector, isn’t it only logical to involve the most successful asset management organizations in the private sector?” says Thomas C. Priore, chief of ICP Capital, a boutique fixed-income investment bank.

And being selected by the government has other benefits, Mr. Priore adds. “If any endowment or public pension plan representative is looking for an asset management firm, he or she won’t get fired for hiring Pimco because, well, the government hired Pimco,” he says. “That certainly enhances your franchise value.”