February 14, 2008

FLASH: UBS posts largest loss in the history of banking, and to think, we're STILL just getting started


It's nice to see the banks own up to some of their "subprime" problem. Too bad this whole mess just STARTS with subprime - it definitely doesn't end there!

Won't it be fun to see the banks own up to their Alt-A problem? And to their option-ARM problem? And to their Prime problem? And to their entire mortgage portfolio problem?

And then won't it be fun when they own up to the fact that the underlying collateral - the houses - have plummeted in value worldwide?

Trillions and trillions and trillions will eventually be lost. Banks will fail. Governments will be called on to bail everyone out. And these $13 billion write-downs will seem so tiny next year.

My question today is this: How long until hot-potato holders like UBS start suing the mortgage fraud enablers at Countrywide, First Fed, Wells Fargo, IndyMac and others, who falsified the paperwork, juiced the appraisals and created this mess in the first place?


UBS Posts Record Loss After $13.7 Billion Writedowns

UBS AG posted the biggest ever loss by a bank in the fourth quarter after $13.7 billion in writedowns on securities infected by U.S. subprime mortgages.

Rising U.S. subprime-mortgage defaults have led to more than $145 billion in writedowns and loan losses at the world's biggest financial companies.

``The rot is spreading to other residential areas,'' ABN Amro Holding NV analysts Kinner Lakhani and Omar Fall said in a note to clients last week. They recommend investors ``avoid'' UBS shares and forecast as much as $10.8 billion of possible further writedowns at the bank.

21 comments:

Frank R said...

I still laugh that the MSM is only talking about subprime. All the idiots I know who bought in Phoenix/Scottsdale were on Alt-A and option-arm.

It's only just begun....

Anonymous said...

3% of Prime loans are now past due

Anonymous said...

Are any banks really safe, even assuming you have less than 100K on deposit. Looks like the FDIC will be overwhelmed as it is, and who knows how long it will take to get your worthless dollars back!

Anonymous said...

Paulson "The worst is just beginning..."
I am shocked! Nobody saw this coming, at least nobody on this blog. (sarcasm off)
Goes to show that those boyz (Paulson & Bernanke) know a lot more than they let on.
Remember when everything was contained to the sub-prime market not but 6 month ago? Now the cancer has spread to every vital organ in the credit business.

Bill said...

Keith this is fucking amazing

wake up americans...you wonder where all that Oil money we are fighting for is going....well have a look see.

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/02/where-is-all-oil-money-going.html?ref=patrick.net

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a great reason for stocks to rally.

.

Anonymous said...

Bailouts dead ahead. AHOOGA!

Anonymous said...

why would they sue the shady portfolio lenders? they don't have any money. it's better to go straight to the FedGov.

Mammoth said...

Does UBS stand for:
"Upside-down Banking System?"

consultant said...

Keith,

Our attention is currently being drawn toward the presidential contest. Interesting stuff. But what's happening to the financial system and in energy is way past that.

I saw the movie Cloverfield and couldn't help but compare it to our situation today. MSM and everybody is just partying along, livin' life, wrapped up in our personal angst. Then all of a sudden-it happens. All hell breaks loose. Those who couldn't see or didn't want to see or going to be scared AND mad as hell.

Gravity like reality is a motherf##ker. The juggling will stop and then all of us will see the sh!t we're in. As you and others have said, it will not be pretty.

Our next President needs to have as much or more "game" than Roosevelt had when he entered office.

Anonymous said...

>> Goes to show that those boyz (Paulson & Bernanke) know a lot more than they let on.

OF COURSE THEY DO! A lot of folks on this blog think Bush, Paulson, Bernanke, et all, are just plain stupid, and this is all happening by accident. ARE YOU F'N KIDDING ME! None of them are Einstein-level intellects - but they know EXACTLY what's going down AND what's yet still to come!

They're not stupid or corrupt - they're simply liars - and at best, pawns, and at worst, useful idiots.

HOUSE2008 said...

Banks will not fail. Bernake will bail them out adding another 500+ billion to the deficit. Off the books like the funding for the Iraq war. So it's not part of the deficiet.

Anonymous said...

Hey sheep (aka Obama's base), have you been buying into the Wall Street-crooks' fake rallies lately?

How much is down today after the phony rally yesterday to shave the sheep? Oh, the it's down only 1%, so far?

Now, let me tell you what will happen later, the current shady group in command will hold on until Bush leaves office and then they'll let it go to hell, just in time to blow on Obama's face, including Iraq and Afghanistan.

Then the corrupt MSM (Chris Matthews, Tim Russert, Wolf, Cooper, Hannity, O'Reilly, etc), along with their master Republican slime machine, will bash Obama's administration day and night for the next 4 years, Britney's style. That will send African Americans back 50 years.

Good luck with the historical mess that will be dumped on you, Obama and African Americans!

Stay away from that Hillary, let them burn.

Anonymous said...

Well, like I've always said...

"There's no BS like UBS!!!"

Anonymous said...

someone needs to create a sub-prime "writedown-o-meter" website

Anonymous said...

obama needs to have al sharpton as his VP, jesse as sec of state (jesse is always overseas pandering to some third world dictator anyway), oprah as communications director, snoop dog as head of dea, oj as attorney general, fifty cent as sec defense.


now, how about hillary's dream team? mccains?

Anonymous said...

A bunch of amateur investors at UBS got taken to school! You know, Econ 101...stuff they should have learned in their freshmen year at college. ...an expensive lesson it was, yes indeed. Real estate only goes up! Don't ya know!? Stupid suckers! Hey I got some tulip bulbs @ $100K a piece, the next big thing since the last big thing. Better get in now before you're priced out for ever.

Anonymous said...

"Then the corrupt MSM (Chris Matthews, Tim Russert, Wolf, Cooper, Hannity, O'Reilly, etc), along with their master Republican slime machine, will bash Obama's administration day and night for the next 4 years, Britney's style. That will send African Americans back 50 years."

Sorry, but Matthews and Russert are Democrats. CNN was started by Ted Turner, former husband of Jane Fonda. Matthews, a convert to the Democratic Party, was a speech writer for Jimmy Carter, and an aide to Tip O'Neall. Tim Russert was chief of staff for Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and an advisor to Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo. Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer have not announced their party affiliations, if any. Bill O'Reilly is a registered independent.

Obama doesn't need them to trash him; his voting record speaks for itself. While many his causes may seem benign or "progressive," they often cannot work in a free society where citizens, not subjects, have individual rights. Presently, he's a darling because he speaks of hope and change, but judging by appearances is not necessarily wise. His similarity to the character "Jasmine," on the Buffy spinoff "Angel," is remarkable.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, but Matthews and Russert are Democrats.

Wrong, they're with whomever is running the show, which right now are the Republican Corporate Fascists. All of them have been bashing Hillary from day one, in a daily basis, how can they possibly be democrat? Hillary is the new Britney.

Yesterday Larry King was all apologetic to McCain because during the interview Larry accidentally asked a tough question. McCain got defensive and Larry opened his legs like a cheap whore, as usual.

Those shills never ask tough questions to Republicans, have you noticed? Wolf, after bashing Hillary with a biased rhetorical question during the Democratic debate, was booed by the audience. You never see the same behavior during the Republican debate. Cooper was like a little whore saying, "I don't even want to touch Reagan's diary sitting next to me", during the Republican debate at the Reagan library.

These are the same corrupt people who gave a free pass to Bush/Cheney to go to war, and even after that fiasco, they still protect this administration, by saying that the surge has worked. It's all about: "Look over here how Britney and Hillary are bad..don't look over there to Scooter Libby."

These shills dressed as reporters never question this administration for all the damage done in just 7 years, but they're on top to expose how many times Bill Clinton used the word "I" or pointed his finger during a speech or Hillary's laugh.

Matthews and Russert are Republican shills.

Anonymous said...

Bill O'Reilly is a registered independent.

Man, you lost all credibility right there. You're just another Republican troll.

Anonymous said...

"'Bill O'Reilly is a registered independent.'"

"Man, you lost all credibility right there. You're just another Republican troll.

No, you're an inductive-reasoning idiot.

"Political beliefs and points of view: Main article: Politics of Bill O'Reilly

"The O'Reilly Factor focuses on news related to politics most of the time, which O'Reilly then offers commentary about.

"In the lead up to the 2008 presidential election, The Daily Telegraph ranked O'Reilly 82nd on its list of the '100 most influential conservatives in America'.

"He has adopted the term 'traditionalist' when describing his points of view on various topics, saying the term is not limited to the normal party lines.

“'I'm not a political guy in the sense that I embrace an ideology. To this day I'm an independent thinker, an independent voter, I'm a registered independent ... there are certain fundamental things that this country was founded upon that I respect and don't want changed. That separates me from the secularists who want a complete overhaul of how the country is run.'
— Bill O'Reilly"

http://tinyurl.com/dmj23

Apparently, your definition of "credibility" means whatever agrees with your preconceived opinion.

As for the dumbass above you who thinks Chris Matthews and Tim Russert are Republican lap dogs, I gather facts are irrelevant to his way of not-thinking. He obviously didn't watch the Republican debates, where the staged video questions were ridiculous in the extreme, and came complete with a Confederate flag and hillybilly music. Turns out, six of the YouTube querists were operatives for Hillary and other Democratic party hopefuls. So if the debates were rigged, they were rigged across the board.

I am not a Republican, and never have been. Leaping to conclusions is symptomatic of incredible stupidity.