At a marginal CHF 9 billion contingent senior taxpayer expense. Not great. But being able to tank $17bn of AT1s was $17bn UBS won’t have to raise and Bern won’t have to finance.
I think you mean supposedly
It was certainly not the only option. The Swiss seem to bury everything that was once important to them. They are not truly neutral anymore, and now they have let one of their oldest banks fail. The image of Switzerland as being a place of stability and smart decisions takes a big hit.
What the tuck is wrong with these people?
Social media has spread East German boomer anti-Americanism to the rest of the German-speaking world.
Today countries like Austria, Switzerland and Germany are full of people who will blame bad weather on the US.
Obviously, if anyone has a weather control system today, it's the US - specifically, either the CIA or the DOD. I mean, this is what the TV has been telling us for the past 50+ years.
This is the flip side of Hollywood being the cultural propaganda arm of the USA. You have to take the good with the bad!
At the point the pipeline was blown up, Russia had already essentially cut off the flow with their "oh dear, the turbine seems to be malfunctioning" antics.
Germany: We're ok, thank you for your concern
Russia: cuts back NG/Oil going through pipelines to Germany
US: Let's just make that permanent. Germany doesn't know what's good for itself. Boom. Hey Germany, now that you can't get it from Russia, would you like to buy some of ours? We've been telling you, ahem, warning you, for years, friend.
Allies are just those with interests that align closely enough that destroying each other would hurt everyone more than it’s worth. Doesn’t stop the manipulation.
Germany, you shouldn't be so reliant on Russian gas/oil while they are actively invading their neighbors, shooting down airliners, blowing up ammunition depots and using nerve agents on NATO territory.
Germany, France: ...
Imagine the reaction if, say, the Saudis, or China blew up the Keystone pipeline... Because the US is making the wrong decision of being reliant on the wrong source of foreign oil.
Regardless of the merits of their argument, it's not their pipeline, it's not their call to make.
2. Others were affected by the construction of the pipeline, yet their concerns were brushed aside with nothing better than hand waving and a load of Wandel durch Handel rubbish. To be honest, I'm not sure why anyone east of Germany should care one bit about what German anti-NATO boomers think. To make it crystal clear, national security of Eastern European allies is not something for Germany to trade away -- it never was. We will have our security, if it comes to that, at the cost of German jobs. Not that Germany needs much help with that, what with the genius level planning that went into the Energiewende and all that.
As far as I can tell this opinion is not uncommon, outside of the German speaking bubble.
Germany: Hey, Russia, supplier of our energy, screw you for feeling threatened by NATO countries (like us) and US interfering with a huge neighboring country. Hope your not offended by the Leopard tanks and artillery we just sent to kill your soldiers.
Russia: cuts back NG/Oil going through pipelines to Germany
There is no plausible way that the party that's both eager to export LNG, and has a geopolitical interest in seeing Germany distance itself from Russia (without getting cold feet when the winter starts, and everyone actually gets cold feet) had anything to do with it.
"The average intellectual of the Left believed, for instance, that the war was lost in 1940, that the Germans were bound to overrun Egypt in 1942, that the Japanese would never be driven out of the lands they had conquered, and that the Anglo-American bombing offensive was making no impression on Germany. He could believe these things because his hatred for the British ruling class forbade him to admit that British plans could succeed. There is no limit to the follies that can be swallowed if one is under the influence of feelings of this kind. I have heard it confidently stated, for instance, that the American troops had been brought to Europe not to fight the Germans but to crush an English revolution. One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool. "
-- George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism (1945)
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...
Sorry, just getting out of the influence of someone similar. It’s a hit too painful.
How would you say that is “roping in Russia”?
"So, the primordial interest of the United States over which for centuries we have fought wars, the first, second and cold war has been the relationship between Germany and Russia. Because united they are the only force that could threaten us, and to make sure that that doesn’t happen."
https://uaposition.com/stratfor-founder-and-ceo-george-fried...
It's worth noting that in certain industries, bonuses make up a fair chunk of total comp and are expected. They should therefore be thought of as being closer to employee compensation than some sort of extraordinary reward.
I noticed you specifically called out "bonuses" but not salaries or wages, implying that bonuses are bad but salaries and wages are not. However, as I pointed out, the bonuses should effectively be counted as wages because they're expected.
This is the only factor that matters, but I’d guess most bankers are over-compensated generally given the contributions made to society.
It's not really even about Credit Suisse. It's about worldwide C-suite compensation. It is disgusting.
I did just look at comparisons between USA CEOs to European and Japanese, and America is a horror show compared to them. This is CEOs so I'm not sure how the entire C-suite or top executives would fare against the same in America - maybe European companies spread it out more evenly to top-level executives.
https://www.wtwco.com/en-US/Insights/2020/12/ceo-pay-landsca...
But if the $3.2 billion per year in bonuses still went to the top 20 people, it is essentially the same, at least to me.
But I do know the USA better, so I will comment to that even though Credit Suisse is Euro. For example, Tim Cook of Apple made $100 million in 2021, not including $754 million in stock shares. Cook "voluntarily" took a "cut" in compensation to $50 million per year this year. Oh, thanks, Tim. But is Tim Cook going to quit and do nothing if he was paid $5 million all along? Yeah, maybe now he would, given that he is a billionaire, but if from the start, no he would not quit, nor stop working as hard. People are motivated by more than money. They will take it, of course, who wouldn't?
Nobody, but nobody, needs that much money. How many pairs of shoes and pants does one need? And I use shoes and pants metaphorically. How much shit does one need?
And partly, or mostly, it is driven by boards of directors, who make $300K or $400K or whatever it is per year by going to 4 meetings per year. Not bad job, if you can get it. Just looked it up - Harvard Law School report says it is $290K for large cap, $217K for medium cap, and $164K for small. These board of directors are always high executive levels and KNOW if they as a group across the USA vote the average CEO and C-suite higher compensation, they will eventually get it too, so it is a conflict of interest that screw over the shareholders, and all other workers who are down the chain.
In the 1960s, CEO compensation was 60 times the average worker, or 6,000%. Not bad. Now it is 350 times the average worker, or 35,000% more.
From the beginning of income tax, for most of USA history, the tax rate was 70-90% on the top tax bracket. It came down to 50% when Reagan was elected in 1980, and then down to about 35% in 1986 and stayed there until present. Guess when the inequalities between the richest 10% and the other 90% started occuring...you guessed it, in 1986. you get a 35-55% tax break, you tend to make more money, kinda sorta.
As a matter of fact, the only time that the income tax level went down to the richest tax bracket was in the late 1920s....and then the market collapse happened and the Great Depression happened...correlation, or causation...I vote causation. And the exact same scenario is playing out now. Unmitigated greed is happening.
And what happened is that when the wealthy hit the top tax bracket, there was no reason to earn more. Their salary was capped, in essense. And that is why CEO compensation was only 6000% more than the average worker.
People make the bogus argument that the best won't then work. That's totally wrong, as the best don't work for compensation. They work for competition. And what else are they going to do if tax is at 70-90%? Sit around and do nothing? They still have to send kids to college and pay mortgages. And everyone else is subject to the same restrictions. And when we had the higher top tax bracket, that is when "normal" people had lower tuitions paid for by the public, hospital costs were less, etc. And I've read all the other "reasons" for what others say is the reason for price raises in everything, but I don't buy them.
Why should even a small business owner make $5 million a year while providing bronze health insurance, with super high deductables to his or her employees, when maybe if the owner could take $5 million and get everyone gold level health care?
There's a LOT more I could say but this is enough. I don't have time to write more.
But, to sum up, the CEO and entire executive class makes too much money and it needs to be reined in.
Sorry I wrote so much. It's a topic that causes steam to rise from my skull. :P
CS paid over 32 Billion in bonuses since 2013![1] Meanwhile people aren't getting paid more to balance the inflation.
I also see a lot of US blaming going around specifically because of the capital regulations that the EU and Switzerland put in place since 2008 and supposedly the US did not. Also supposedly profited over them because they did not need to meet as strict of capital requirements. I don't hear much about SVB however.
The news has also reported that the Swiss government wanted to let the US branch of CS fail but there was enormous pressure from the US to prevent this.
There are a lot of details of this deal that aren't clear yet but I do have the feeling everyone here more or less agrees this was the only option. The focus seems to be on why it came to this situation in the first place. There is also a push from some parties to push for a government investigation.
I also expect the next pension law adjustment coming up to have a very hard time after all this.
[1] https://www.blick.ch/politik/trotz-hilfe-vom-staat-darum-sol...
Edit: Spelling