The banking industry is ludicrous.
Have you ever made a bad decision that cost you more money than you could afford at that point? Maybe up to two grand, maybe less. I've certainly been in situations myself where the loss of twenty quid would have meant that I couldn't afford food for a period of time. For a huge chunk of the world, even two quid is a massively significant - quite feasibly life-saving - amount of money.
UBS lost two billion dollars. That's two with nine zeros after it if we're being generous and assuming an American billion. The vast majority of us won't even approach that figure if every income throughout our lives were to be totalled up. It's an absurd amount of money. Large companies are wiped off the map for losses of a fraction of that figure.
UBS lost two billion dollars and they're concerned that it might - not 'will', 'might' - mean that they report a loss this quarter rather than a profit.
My sympathy is rather limited. Sorry, UBS, you can't have a new private island this quarter, you'll have to settle for the ones that you already have.
Here's an idea: once, just once, at the end of a financial year, the banks agree that they'll all break even. Profits in excess of break-even are used to build housing, provide clean water and food, and put an end to want across the globe. There'd be enough to do it many times over. Since all banks do it unilaterally, no single institution makes any gain or loss over another, and the money ends up back with the banks anyway - who do you think will get the contracts to fix everything up?
Except it won't happen, because capitalism relies on not a division of labour, but a division of quality of life. Otherwise, nobody would spend money and enter debt to try and have a decent place to live, or clean water and food, or education for their kids.
Bollocks.
