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Democrats are taking shots at Mitt Romney's Swiss bank account, accusing him of wanting to "conceal something," reports the Huffington Post. The issue came up yesterday in a conference call by President Obama's election campaign that was supposed to be about raising taxes on the rich.

As part of a weeklong campaign around the Buffett Rule, President Obama’s re-election team is making Mitt Romney the face of income tax inequality. On a conference call with reporters Monday, top Obama surrogates blasted the Republican candidate for keeping years of tax returns secret, using offshore bank accounts for some investments, and enjoying a lower effective tax rate than most middle-income Americans. -snip- Durbin said. “And when is the last time a presidential candidate for the U.S. had a Swiss bank account? The answer is never.”

Swiss bank UBS on Sunday increased the amount it said it had lost on rogue equity trades to $2.3 billion and alleged a trader concealed his risky deals by creating fictitious hedging positions in internal systems. UBS stunned markets on Thursday when it announced unauthorised trades had lost it some $2 billion. London trader Kweku Adoboli was charged on Friday with fraud and false accounting dating back to 2008.

The pressure is starting to build inside troubled UBS. The bank’s investment bank boss, Carsten Kengeter, who some saw as a future leader of the overall bank, could be forced to fall on his sword, sources tell The Post. At the same time, the wounded Zurich-based financial services firm could significantly shrink itself in the fallout from its rogue trader debacle, sources added. Blame for the Swiss bank’s embarrassing $2 billion trading loss likely will be laid at the feet of Kengeter, 44, a former Goldman Sachs banker who joined UBS in 2008 to manage the bank’s troubled investment banking...

UBS AG (UBS) Friday said its chief risk officer will become chief executive of its Americas business in a move meant to strengthen the Swiss bank's activities there, taking over part of Robert Wolf's role, a high-profile investment banking friend of President Barack Obama. -snip- Wolf will remain chairman of the Americas and president of the investment bank but will step down from the UBS group executive board.

GENEVA — Switzerland said Monday that it won't extradite Roman Polanski to the United States for sentencing on a charge of unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl. The Oscar-winning director of "Rosemary's Baby," "Chinatown" and "The Pianist" was accused of plying his victim with champagne and part of a Quaalude during a 1977 modeling shoot and raping her. He was initially indicted on six felony counts, including rape by use of drugs, child molesting and sodomy, but pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse. What happened after that is a subject of dispute. The defense says the now...

BERN, Switzerland (AP) - The Swiss government declared renowned film director Roman Polanski a free man on Monday after rejecting a U.S. request to extradite him on a charge of having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl. The Swiss mostly blamed U.S. authorities for failing to provide confidential testimony about Polanski's sentencing procedure in 1977-1978. The Justice Ministry also said that national interests were taken into consideration in the stunning decision. "The 76-year-old French-Polish film director Roman Polanski will not be extradited to the USA," the ministry said in a statement. "The freedom-restricting measures against him have been revoked."

Site in German- Polanski has been freed from house arrest in Switzerland and is free to travel. US has no recourse.

MEN OF HONOR Apparently, if you want to cheat on your wife or spurn the mother of your unborn child, cover up and easily settle your institution's criminal efforts to help Americans avoid paying their federal income taxes, or just avoid paying your own fair share, the place to be is on President Barack Obama's economic-recovery advisory board. Because that's where Robert Wolf, chief executive of UBS Group Americas, the U.S. arm of one of Switzerland's largest banks, UBS AG, sits, as do Charles E. Phillips, President of Oracle Corporation, Peter Orszag, the director of the Office of Management of...

JANUARY 23, 2010 Obama's Lead Blocker on Wall Street UBS Executive Advises President on Economic Issues Even as Feud Between White House, Finance Industry Heats Up By NEIL KING JR. President Barack Obama's long feud with Wall Street is getting only hotter. He is pushing a regulatory revamp that would rein in the size and power of the big banks, after jabbing at "fat cat bankers" and denouncing Wall Street greed. But Mr. Obama has at least one buddy in the banking business: a former University of Pennsylvania fullback and ex-Salomon Brothers bond trader who now serves as an outside...

Who Is Funding Barack Obama? by Paul Hollrah In a July 10 installment of “The World According to Barack,” we discussed Obama’s phenomenal fundraising juggernaut. Obama boasts of having built a contributor base of 1.5 million people, each contributing $5, $10, $20...or, as Obama assures us, “whatever they could afford.” Please do the math with me. The Obama campaign has disclosed that one-fourth, or $66.25 million of the $265 million reported as of May 31, 2008 (he has raised an additional $70 million during the month of June), came from those contributing $2,000, or more...which means that the remainder, or...

There is a flaw in the American psyche that inclines us to perceive presidents as, if not saviors, kings. It may be man’s inchoate longing for a strong ruler or for immediate gratification, but whatever the reason it is a flaw, and a tendency one should curb. For too long, too many have looked to a new President to solve every perceived problem. With every new administration there is the great expectation of revolutionary change, which within a year or two transforms itself into the disappointing realization that nothing much has changed. Executive Orders not withstanding, a president is not...

There is a flaw in the American psyche that inclines us to perceive presidents as, if not saviors, kings. It may be man’s inchoate longing for a strong ruler or for immediate gratification, but whatever the reason it is a flaw, and a tendency one should curb. For too long, too many have looked to a new President to solve every perceived problem. With every new administration there is the great expectation of revolutionary change, which within a year or two transforms itself into the disappointing realization that nothing much has changed. Executive Orders not withstanding, a president is not...

Every year at this time, to the distress of some and the delight of others, we are exposed to a number of film versions of “A Christmas Carol”. It was the Christmas stories of Dickens, particularly his 1843 masterpiece “A Christmas Carol”, that rekindled the Christmas spirit in Britain and America, which had all but disappeared under Cromwell and the Puritans. Many of his works include scenes of Christmas. In fact, Dickens' name became so synonymous with Christmas that on hearing of his death in 1870 a little girl in London asked, "Mr. Dickens dead? Then will Father Christmas die...

The Sound and the Fury: The Left’s inane refrain. By Robert Wolf The constant drone you hear from the Left is a complaint that their attempts at debate are considered unpatriotic. After all they tell us this is a free country, and their voices should be heard. While it is true this is a free country, it is also a civil one. There are rules to debate. Ad hominem attacks at the top of one’s lungs are not debate. George Bush should not be tried for war crimes or torn limb from limb. Debate is a civilized process where one...

One great insight from the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter is that, “the first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie,” and the fuss and furor over drilling in ANWR illustrates the point. Do Utopians lie, yes? Do they have to lie, yes ? Why? The sugarplums dancing in their heads can’t be defended in any other way. Of all the arguments against drilling in ANWR, perhaps the most ingenuous is that there is not enough oil to bother with. According to Richard Pombo, representing the 11th Congressional District of California: Texas has 4.9 billion barrels of proven...

(LibertarianToday.com) -- Ruy Teixeira, a rising star at the Democrat Century Foundation, made me laugh recently when he recommended that venerating the ‘virtue’ of "shared sacrifice" was the best way for Democrats to capture the Presidency in 2004. Go Dems! Two pictures immediately formed in my mind; the first of two DNC High Priests lifting obsidian knifes above a trussed-up and terrified taxpayer. The second of two panhandlers with dinner napkins tucked at the neck painstakingly dissecting, and dining upon, a single pea. This class of fatuous chatter originates from the Progressive Wing of the party; the wing that "dare...

The decision by the Royal Air Force to carpet bomb during WWII, in order to demoralize the enemy and foreshorten the war, was a reasonable, condonable, military tactic of the era. But this does not extend to the bombing of the city of Dresden in 1945, which was simply an act of sadism. Not only did it not achieve its stated objective of demoralizing the enemy (impossible in a population long since demoralized) it resulted in the deaths of thousands of Eastern European refugees fleeing the war and the destruction of one of Europe’s most beautiful cities and its trove...

PURE WATER OR PURE BULL By Robert Wolf The sky is falling again. This week the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) warns us that unless we take action, there might be something wrong with our water. The quality and safety of our drinking water is the envy of the world, we have Federal, State, and Municipal agencies dealing with the issue; and yet we are expected to believe that without the whining of these nannies an unbelievable disaster will befall us. Well here is what these nannies want us to be alarmed about. Their release impressively datelined WASHINGTON (June 11,...

Trial Lawyers the 11th Plague By Robert Wolf The AMA has finally noticed that Americans are getting portly; and there is no surprise that avaricious members of the ABA have noticed as well. Tobacco company veins of the are running dry and nightfall approaches. It’s time to select another victim. It can not be denied that many Americans are overweight. But it probably has as much to do with overtaxing as it does with overeating. Both parents are now forced to work to keep the bloated federal government afloat. If deep pockets have anything to do with these proceedings, perhaps,...