Sorry... I don’t agree. Their problems are a lot worse than ours, and they are just now beginning to lay out the facts. I would not say that it’s just the Swiss. The European banks are in deeper doo-doo across the board. It’s no wonder they are trashing the US as the cause of all this. They foolishly bought a lot more of the problem US loans than our banks did. Their mistake, more than ours.
For the the problem of their banks leverage vs. their GDP, I agree with you.
The flip side is that they’re DOING something about the problems other than talking and posturing, which is all the EU and US are doing, respectively.
Show me a bank in the US that when faced with problems like UBS sacked exec’s, directors, etc? None of them. Show me a government that, when faced with their problems (ie, huge bank losses) put in place a plan of increased reserve requirements? No country in the EU, nor the US, as decided to increase reserve requirements. In the US, we’re created an incentive for big reserves by the Fed paying interest on them... but that’s not an explicit directive to raise more capital.
You’re right that they have big problems. My point is, they’re much further along the road to actually solving them than we are. We (in the US) are just posturing and propping up. We’re no dealing the problems or the cause of the problems in any direct, long-term way. Heck, we haven’t even fired any bank execs for simple malfeasance yet. We’ve seen execs let go by acquiring banks, with cushy pay packages, but outright sacking? Nope.