August 5, 2009 UBS Posts $1.3 Billion Quarterly Loss By JULIA WERDIGIER LONDON — UBS posted a $1.3 billion quarterly loss on Tuesday, the third in a row for Switzerland’s biggest bank, and blamed costs linked to its reorganization program. The loss widened to 1.4 billion Swiss francs in the second quarter from 395 million francs in the same period a year earlier. The company cited costs related to job cuts and charges to improve the bank’s debt position, and it said clients continued to withdraw money from its wealth management units even though the rate of net outflows slowed from the first quarter. The bank gave a bleak outlook, saying that a sustainable economic “recovery is not yet visible.”

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______________________________________________ Which is probably why, after climate change has removed we lesser beings from the earth, only cockroaches, crows and the Swiss will survive. Intransigent folk, those middle-European mountaineers.

A hearty breed, devoted to avoiding wars, hiding and protecting others' assets and properly balancing the accounts. No one-time asset re-distributions here. Not an accounting change or connivance of the connibblers to be seen. Nope. These are straight-shooters (even though seldom called upon to actually shoot a potential foreign account-holder). Won't happen. Inconsistent with proper banking procedure. Not gentlemanly. They leave that less wholesome work to the newer world powers--the ones that have come and gone across seemingly endless Swiss banking centuries.