Last Call

We're already up to 15 bank failures in January, on pace to break even last year's 140 bank failures, and looking down the road one of those banks may be Swiss giant UBS.

Switzerland's justice minister warned in an interview on Sunday that top bank UBS could collapse if sensitive talks with the United States over a high-profile tax fraud investigation fall through. 

"The actions of UBS in the United States are very problematic. Not just because they are punishable but also because they threaten all of the bank's activities," Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf told Le Matin Dimanche newspaper.

"The Swiss economy and the job market would suffer on a major scale if UBS fails as a result of its licence being revoked in the United States," she said.

Switzerland and the United States have negotiated an agreement under which UBS would hand over information on some 4,500 account holders to US tax police.

But a Swiss court ruling earlier this month put the deal in doubt. 

In other words, the Swiss are warning that if the US plays hardball with UBS, it'll go under.  The problem is, UBS most likely broke the law and defrauded US taxpayers out of millions.  If they go under because we got that money back...is that a bad thing?

I don't think so.  I also think UBS fully expects the DoJ to drop the case or something.  That's up to Eric Holder, but given the new Volcker Rules stance by the Obama administration and the one thing both progressives and Teabaggers can agree on is that banks are ripping us off, I'm not a sure as I would have been a month ago that Obama would fold on this.

We'll see.