Switzerland Sets Bailout for UBS

[Snazzy]

Source: NYT

October 17, 2008
Switzerland Sets Bailout for UBS
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ
PARIS — Switzerland, a banking redoubt considered until recently to be literally and figuratively above the global financial tumult, succumbed Thursday and announced a bailout plan for its biggest bank, UBS.

Hit harder than any other European financial institution by losses stemming from bad investments in subprime American mortgage debt, UBS will receive a lifeline worth as much as $60 billion from the Swiss National Bank.

...

At the same time, UBS managers were caught off-guard by the speed with which liquidity in the market for mortgage-backed securities evaporated, making them impossible to sell at almost any price.

Under the terms of the agreement announced Thursday, $31 billion in American assets will be taken over by the Swiss National Bank, much of it in the form of debt linked to subprime and Alt-A mortgages, in addition to securities linked to commercial real estate and student loans. An additional $18 billion worth of non-American assets will also be transferred.

....

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/business/worldbusiness/17swiss.html

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One wonders how much 'financial genius,' Phil Gramm, in his Glass-Steagall repealing splendor, had to do with this and what's up with him and the UBS boardroom about now. "Nation of whiners!"

See for example:

McCain guru linked to subprime crisis
By LISA LERER | 3/28/08 2:06 PM EDT Text Size:


Phil Gramm stood by John McCain in his worst days last summer when his campaign went broke and his candidacy was all but written off by political observers.
Photo: AP

The general co-chairman of John McCain’s presidential campaign, former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), led the charge in 1999 to repeal a Depression-era banking regulation law that Democrat Barack Obama claimed on Thursday contributed significantly to today’s economic turmoil.

“A regulatory structure set up for banks in the 1930s needed to change because the nature of business had changed,” the Illinois senator running for president said in a New York economic speech. “But by the time was repealed in 1999, the $300 million lobbying effort that drove deregulation was more about facilitating mergers than creating an efficient regulatory framework.”

Gramm’s role in the swift and dramatic recent restructuring of the nation’s investment houses and practices didn’t stop there.

A year after the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act repealed the old regulations, Swiss Bank UBS gobbled up brokerage house Paine Weber. Two years later, Gramm settled in as a vice chairman of UBS’s new investment banking arm.

...

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9246.html

[Mind_your_head]

1. I doubt Phil Gramm is going to "stand by me" in my worst days as

my personal campaign in this world is going to go broke.

F*ck y'all (in southern drawl)...you've made me 'bend over' MORE than once, and once is 'more than enough!'

[LiberalMandrake]

2. The complete script explained long before it begun

http://illuminati-overtime.blogspot.com/2007/11/collapse-of-major-banks-illuminati-to.html

BTW, this was the Largest Bailout EVER.