I can’t remember where I read this- on the internet or a magazine I get- but the chief exec of UBS  recently unabashedly told his bankers it was perfectly fine to make mistakes, as long as they are honest mistakes.  WTF!  I can’t remember the guy’s last name, but his first name is Sergio I am pretty sure.  At first my brain glossed over the comment, but later on I started to process what was said and I did some research and then got really steamed. The reason it took awhile to get ginned up was because I’m not too good with acronyms and capital letters that really don’t spell anything, but I recalled seeing the word “bankers” and that is what finally stoked my anger and I started to snoop around.

Turns out UBS sort of stands for Union Bank of Switzerland.  They dropped the name Union Bank of Switzerland after a long series of mergers with a variety of investment and banking firms, and there were a number of these acquisitions that ended up being big mistakes.  Driving these mistakes was greed, graft, and deception and it all went on for awhile because the dirty bastards involved knew they could get by with all the mischief because they knew no one was was paying attention, that is until it all imploded during the subprime mortgage crisis.  The tally for the mistake was a 50 billion dollar loss and a loss of 12 thousand jobs.  That’s a lot of money and careless attention to detail, a true clusterfuck of a mistake, and of course UBS got in line for TARP money.  There is another one of those acronyms I can’t remember.  It basically means “bailout'” but if you feel it’s important to you to know its exact meaning look it up yourself.

I’m no international traveler, but I believe the Banks of Switzerland are the  preferred travel destination for all the money the drug cartels need laundered, as well as all that dough over- paid CEO’s want to conceal from the IRS.  Are we stupid or what?  That just double pisses me off.

Rescue Vehicle for Swiss Skiers

Rescue vehicle for Swiss Investment Banks

Sure we all make mistakes.  It’s nice when my wife forgives me for not putting my dirty glass in the dishwasher or leaving the toilet seat up.  In my defense, because of  the heavy concentration of scotch my glass contained I felt it was pretty well a self-cleaning situation that a 160 degrees of dishwasher water couldn’t improve upon.  There is no excuse for the toilet seat though, now that we have one that is self-lowereing.  That was a Christmas present from my daughter-in-law, which seems to speak to the fact that this is an important issue for the women in my family.

Yes I suppose some mistakes can, and should be forgiven.  But there are degrees of mistakes and the more blatantly careless and thoughtless are less forgivable.  What makes this Sergio guy’s philosophy so egregious is not only is he saying it’s ok to make a mistake, but to me for someone in his position to say that is like saying “whoops my bad” to a world-wide economic crisis his company contributed to, and also inferring that maybe the rest of us should be prepared for another to come our way.  It’s perfectly normal in his world to slip up and fuck the rest of us over, and he is prepared to promote any employee of his that comes up with the best idea to give us a sore asshole.   And of course we should all be forgiving of any pain so endured.   It’s just galling that this guy not only says such a thing, but he says it publicly for the whole world to hear.   Geezuz that pisses me off.

People are not too forgiving of a surgeon who removes the wrong limb of a patient.  It’s hard to forgive military personnel responsible for bombing a hospital staffed by Doctor’s without Borders.  Usually mistakes like that will get you fired or sued, or both. Maybe even a jail sentence.  But not always.  In fact hardly ever in the financial sector.  What the shifty scum bags in this profession have mysteriously been able to do is to take that one adage “We learn from our mistakes” and flip it on it’s head.   What they learn from their mistakes is what they can’t get by with, and then apply that knowledge to help them decide how to get by with their next mistake.   And the rest of us seem to be helpless to stop it.

I’m not so sure we really get smarter with age.  I think for most of us there’s just less stuff left that we haven’t screwed up yet.  We really should wise up to these pompous dicks running gigantic financial institutions though.  Believe me there are plenty of Sergio’s out there drawing up plans for their next mistake.  Vote for Bernie.  He’ll straighten those greedy bastards out.