no one saw this coming
I think the thing that no on saw coming is that by contract equities are supposed to be wiped out before bond holders. Apparently also the Saudis offered to buy CS for a higher price than than UBS but that was never really considered, and the Saudis are (were, actually) their biggest shareholder. So there's definitely some pissed off people right now, though can you really blame the gov't of Switzerland for not wanting the Kingdom to own their formerly great bank?
LOL Equities were wiped out. "Equities are supposed to be wiped out before bond holders" doesn't make a lot of sense when the whole structure of AT1s is "oops the stock is swirling the bowl that means your bond has just been converted to floaters." The whole point is in the event of equities going to zero, the bond ceases to be a bond and becomes equity. The Saudi sovereign wealth fund had a billion and a half in Credit Suisse. It had a valuation of $7b as of Friday. There were $17b in AT1s. I have a hard time believing that the Saudis had more skin in the game than everybody else because if they did, it'd be Credit Arabia already. We're talking bloodsuckers here, not patriots. Remember - the Swiss sovereign wealth fund was printing money and buying Apple stock with it. At one point they were 18% of Apple, Inc. If they wanted to throw the thing into receivership they can print whatever they need. This is like Congress deciding "125k, 250k, whatever guarantee all deposits" - AT1 holders are pissed off that their bonds are suddenly worthless when the whole point of those bonds is that they become worthless. Speaking as a capitalist, they all deserve to fucking burn.
They were wiped out mathematically, not legally, which IMO is different. You can make a fantastic technocratic argument that they did the right thing. I'm just increasingly uncomfortable with the lack of adherence to the rule of law in the West. That's supposed to be what separates us from the autocracies of the world.
It's not like this is a new thing. There are two differences between then and now: 1) Greek debt was not designed, regulated, advertised and presumed to be the thing most likely to evaporate in the event of systemic governmental crises 2) Bondholders had not gotten in the habit of presuming anything that might affect more than one bank would be made whole by the government(s) at taxpayer expense $13,500 for every man, woman and child in Switzerland. I agree with your larger point - this is bullshit. I'm just so jaded that I can't even be outraged anymore.
Not sure what the hell is up with Europe, but here it's all about the executive order. Even since we gave Bush the blank check he wanted with the AUMF that started the war on terror, every president just keeps pushing the envelope of what an executive order can be used to get away with. Spirit or even letter of the law be damned. I know this is a small c conservative position, so it rubs a lot of liberal leaning types the wrong way, but every time we celebrate a policy we like that was enacted via executive action, we're inviting the next muslim ban. This just isn't how it's all supposed to work. With banking specifically the argument is always that they have to move at a speed that Congress (or the European Commission or whoever) can't move at but that's bullshit. TARP was passed with amazing speed because that's what we deemed necessary at the time. Sure the Tea Baggers formed partly in response, but that's democracy for you. At some point in the future these motherfuckers have to suffer for their sins. Now would be a good time.
Big executive power has been Bill Barr's raison d'etre for the past 40-odd years. The unitary executive is one of the core beliefs of the Federalist Society. Limiting executive power is about as bleeding-heart liberal a position as you can take - I think you're confusing "liberals" with "democrats" when "democrats" count as anyone who cheers against the Republicans. I also think that you're forgetting Occupy Wall Street - a much more vituperative, popular and powerful movement that came about for the exact same reason as the Tea Party. OWS's problem was they didn't organize for shit, they didn't align themselves with anything and they didn't accomplish a fucking thing. That, more than anything, is the most frustrating aspect of American liberalism: the utter inability to focus beyond our own noses. "Black lives matter" yeah but if you want to actually change anything you need more than lawn rainbows you need the Black Panthers. If the assorted amoebas of BLM and Antifa were to take one look at the 3 percenters or the Proud Boys? Fuckin' watch out. In general? Right wing rabble-rousers are a bunch of pussies. But in general? Left-wing rabble-rousers are a bunch of feckless, inconsequential pussies. It drives me crazy.
Conservative love for the unitary executive is part of the problem. I don't know the financial side of this all that well, but on the national security side congress just doesn't have much bandwidth anymore for serious detail oriented work that isn't extremely pressing. This is especially true on the republican side where a huge number of representatives entered congress with a MAGA mindset. Good national security legislation is innately bipartisan. It's not a love for the unitary executive as much as owning libs on Twitter and other performative ritualistic politics is how you get ahead and hard work doesn't count for shit. We are going to see an interesting test of Congress ability to do more than be shit flinging monkeys with the AUMF repeals the Senate is sending over. If they get repealed it would be a bipartisan step towards Congress clawing back a little shred of power, hopefully that might become habit forming but I should probably be careful what I wish for.
Federalist anything is a big part of the problem; their basic goal is to roll back the government to before the Missouri Compromise. I would argue the original shit-flinging Monkey was Newt Gingrich with his "Contract with America". The current crop has certainly devolved further but the original "fuck your governance we have feelings" posse was Gingrich and crew.
