Euphoria over UBS billion euro profit uncalled-for

After encountering severe difficulties as a result of the financial crisis the Swiss major bank UBS announced on Tuesday unexpectedly high second-quarter profits of two billion Swiss francs (roughly 1.5 billion euros). No reason to celebrate, writes the Tages-Anzeiger: "UBS' old leadership did far too much damage to go back to business as usual after three quarterly results in the black. The fact that customers are still withdrawing their funds is proof that the trust has not yet returned. But the question of trust cannot be assessed in terms of money alone. The Swiss people still don't know if they can trust the new bankers (who as a rule haven't changed). Lip service has been paid to all kinds of lessons from the crisis, none of which have yet been implemented on the political level - for example the question of state protection for large enterprises upon whose survival the system depends. The bankers are still suspected of torpedoing regulations. The more their business gets back to normal, the more often they will prove susceptible to such temptation."

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