A better way to describe it is that morons lent out 17 billion dollars worth of debt under terms that would wipe them out if the bank ever ran into serious fina

A better way to describe it is that morons lent out 17 billion dollars worth of debt under terms that would wipe them out if the bank ever ran into serious financial trouble. Whether UBS made any profit on the deal or not heavily depends on how much CS's book is worth. If it's worth more than the deposits, it's a good deal for them. Given the crap that CS invested in, it may be worth much less than bank's liabilities.