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The Swiss are extremely pissed. They spent a lot of capital and time to put up the to big to fail laws which this bank met yet it still failed. CS paid over 32

The Swiss are extremely pissed. They spent a lot of capital and time to put up the to big to fail laws which this bank met yet it still failed. 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 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-sollen-bei-der-cs-weiterhin-boni-fliessen-id18414836.html https://www.blick.ch/politik/trotz-hilfe-vom-staat-darum-sol... Edit: Spelling

gruez 4y ago
>CS paid over 32 Billion in bonuses since 2013![1] Meanwhile people aren't getting paid more to balance the inflation. 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.
- rcme 4y ago
  Yes, but in banking, government bailouts have also come to be expected. Clearly the public should consider bailouts and fat profits and bonuses as fundamentally incompatible.
  - gruez 4y ago
    >bailouts and fat profits and bonuses as fundamentally incompatible. 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.
    - rcme 4y ago
      I also said fat profits, which generally encompasses all business activity.
- mancerayder 4y ago
  Exactly. Unfortunately in finance they give you the bonus as 'the missing piece of your salary' for the majority of rank and file. Go after the executive bonuses if you must. The rest of them are just chumps who wait til Feb/March to get the rest of their pay.
- FrontierPsych 4y ago
  Right. And that compensation is much too high.
  - gruez 4y ago
    That's a valid concern, but "32 Billion in bonuses" is a poor way to argue for the reasons I outlined above. 32 billion over 9 years works out to be 3.5B per year. Is that a lot? It would depend on how many employees they have. How much of that is "expected" vs "bonus for a job well done"? How does total comp track with jobs at other industries with similar requirements?
    - cudgy 4y ago
      > How does total comp track with jobs at other industries with similar requirements? This is the only factor that matters, but I’d guess most bankers are over-compensated generally given the contributions made to society.
    - FrontierPsych 4y ago
      I understand what you are saying. I understand that every single thing a person gets is compensation, whether bonuses, healthcare, paid vacations, sick days, everything is part of the compensation. 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-landscape-in-japan-the-us-and-europe-2020-analysis 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
belter 4y ago
Swiss press of today, mentions Credit Suisse are still planning to pay their Bankers Bonus before the deal concludes...
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> spent a lot of capital and time to put up the to big to fail laws which this bank met yet it still failed 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.
curiousllama 4y ago
> suppository profited I think you mean supposedly
- aussiegreenie 4y ago
  No, I think he/she meant Swiss Taxpayers have had things shoved up their bottom.
  - tannhaeuser 4y ago
    I think you mean showed up in their bottom?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Silverback_VII 4y ago
>I do have the feeling everyone here more or less agrees this was the only option. 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.
- lazide 4y ago
  Near as I can tell, no one is truly neutral. They’re just more obvious about playing both sides at once. WW2 being a classic example.
- thrown123098 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - QuercusMax 4y ago
    I bet you think SVB failed because they were too "woke" as well, right?
    - formerly_proven 4y ago
      The comment is sarcastically referencing GPs "the Swiss seem to bury everything that was once important to them".
      - thrown123098 4y ago
        The worst thing about the new left is how lame they made being left. 30 years ago we would have had illegal raves during the lockdowns. Today we had illegal church services. What the tuck is wrong with these people?
0xDEF 4y ago
>I also see a lot of US blaming going around 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.
- realworldperson 4y ago
  [dead]
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  > 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!
  - throwway120385 4y ago
    You should see our mind control system.
    - roundandround 4y ago
      Of course to show them to you we would have to shut them off.
    - chii 4y ago
      It's displayed in the open, and it's called hollywood.
      - hnfong 4y ago
        It’s also called Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc…
- Silverback_VII 4y ago

gruez 4y ago

>CS paid over 32 Billion in bonuses since 2013![1] Meanwhile people aren't getting paid more to balance the inflation. 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.

rcme 4y ago
Yes, but in banking, government bailouts have also come to be expected. Clearly the public should consider bailouts and fat profits and bonuses as fundamentally incompatible.
- gruez 4y ago
  >bailouts and fat profits and bonuses as fundamentally incompatible. 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.
  - rcme 4y ago
    I also said fat profits, which generally encompasses all business activity.
mancerayder 4y ago
Exactly. Unfortunately in finance they give you the bonus as 'the missing piece of your salary' for the majority of rank and file. Go after the executive bonuses if you must. The rest of them are just chumps who wait til Feb/March to get the rest of their pay.
FrontierPsych 4y ago
Right. And that compensation is much too high.
- gruez 4y ago
  That's a valid concern, but "32 Billion in bonuses" is a poor way to argue for the reasons I outlined above. 32 billion over 9 years works out to be 3.5B per year. Is that a lot? It would depend on how many employees they have. How much of that is "expected" vs "bonus for a job well done"? How does total comp track with jobs at other industries with similar requirements?
  - cudgy 4y ago
    > How does total comp track with jobs at other industries with similar requirements? This is the only factor that matters, but I’d guess most bankers are over-compensated generally given the contributions made to society.
  - FrontierPsych 4y ago
    I understand what you are saying. I understand that every single thing a person gets is compensation, whether bonuses, healthcare, paid vacations, sick days, everything is part of the compensation. 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-landscape-in-japan-the-us-and-europe-2020-analysis 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

belter 4y ago

Swiss press of today, mentions Credit Suisse are still planning to pay their Bankers Bonus before the deal concludes...

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> spent a lot of capital and time to put up the to big to fail laws which this bank met yet it still failed 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.

curiousllama 4y ago

> suppository profited I think you mean supposedly

aussiegreenie 4y ago
No, I think he/she meant Swiss Taxpayers have had things shoved up their bottom.
- tannhaeuser 4y ago
  I think you mean showed up in their bottom?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Silverback_VII 4y ago

>I do have the feeling everyone here more or less agrees this was the only option. 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.

lazide 4y ago
Near as I can tell, no one is truly neutral. They’re just more obvious about playing both sides at once. WW2 being a classic example.
thrown123098 4y ago
[flagged]
- QuercusMax 4y ago
  I bet you think SVB failed because they were too "woke" as well, right?
  - formerly_proven 4y ago
    The comment is sarcastically referencing GPs "the Swiss seem to bury everything that was once important to them".
    - thrown123098 4y ago
      The worst thing about the new left is how lame they made being left. 30 years ago we would have had illegal raves during the lockdowns. Today we had illegal church services. What the tuck is wrong with these people?

0xDEF 4y ago

>I also see a lot of US blaming going around 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.

realworldperson 4y ago
[dead]
TeMPOraL 4y ago
> 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!
- throwway120385 4y ago
  You should see our mind control system.
  - roundandround 4y ago
    Of course to show them to you we would have to shut them off.
  - chii 4y ago
    It's displayed in the open, and it's called hollywood.
    - hnfong 4y ago
      It’s also called Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc…
Silverback_VII 4y ago