UBS: Bank For Tax Cheaters Is Getting A Bailout (UBS, AIG) - BY US TAXPAYERS dollars - not a good idea !

http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2008/09/22/using-our-money-to-bail-out-ubs-bad-idea/

Using our money to bail out UBS? Bad idea!

Posted Sep 22nd 2008 11:30AM by Peter Cohan
Filed under: Market matters, Scandals, Politics

Hank Paulson's bid to get $700 billion of our money to bail out Wall Street is not getting the quick weekend approval he so desperately craved. One reason for that might be that Paulson is determined to use our money to bail out not just Wall Street banks, but also those in other countries -- like Switzerland, according to the New York Times. In particular, he wants our tax money to go to UBS AG (NYSE: UBS). Some might think that UBS is not deserving of U.S. taxpayer's money.

Here are three reasons:

• It is accused of helping clients dodge U.S. taxes: BusinessWeek reports that UBS is accused of helping taxpayers dodge $200 million in U.S. taxes. It could lose its license to operate in the U.S. depending on how these charges are resolved.
• It dumped its toxic Auction Rate Securities (ARS) on its clients just before they became worthless: As I posted, Massachusetts secretary William Galvin uncovered UBS e-mails that demonstrated it decided to force its brokers to sell the worthless ARS to its individual brokerage clients right before the ARS auctions seized up. The purpose was to shift the losses from UBS to its customers.
• John McCain's chief economic advisor and UBS vice chair, Phil "Americans are Whiners" Gramm, deregulated the market that's shoved Wall Street into the abyss: As I posted, in 2000 Gramm snuck a little 262 page amendment into a government re-authorization bill that freed the Credit Default Swap (CDS) market from regulatory scrutiny. It rapidly grew to $62 trillion and contributed to the stunningly swift decline in the stock prices of former Wall Street titans.

In short, UBS does not look like a financial organization we should be rewarding with our hard-earned tax dollars.

If you agree that rewarding UBS with our taxpayer dollars is the right thing to do, there is an easy way for you to help continue those policies for at least four more years. Just vote John McCain on November 4 if you think he is up to the task. In the meantime, here's hoping that Congress can put a stop to Paulson's runaway train before it's too late.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in UBS securities.

Tags: bailout, inthenews, mccain, paulson, ubs

http://www.businessinsider.com/ubs-getting-bailed-out-even-as-they-help-us-tax-cheats-2009-3
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7673159.stm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/04/ubs-official-defies-us-ov_n_171978.html

Joe Weisenthal|Mar. 6, 2009, 1:12 PM|12

Print

Tags: Wall Street, AIG, Bailout, Europe, Switzerland, UBS, Financial Crisis

Yesterday we posited that one of the reasons AIG's counterparties weren't being revealed was because a good number of them are foreign banks. And when people discover that their tax dollars are going to foreign banks via AIG, they'll have a coniption fit.

None of the counterparties have been revealed officially, but among the known parties is UBS.

Of course, UBS is in trouble for helping the rich evade US taxes. And the battle isn't over, either, as the government tries to get the names of many more UBS clients with offshore accounts.

Maybe we can do a quid-pro-quo. No bailout money via AIG without the names. Deal?