The financial meltdown and tell-tale emails

Should UBS be held accountable for selling toxic collateralised debt obligations? The Wall Street Journal reports that UBS staff knew these debt securities were bad and sent off emails making that point quite clear. "OK still have this vomit?" one email said. Another email was just as pithy, saying they had sold "more crap".

As Reuters blogger Matthew Goldstein points out, the damning part about the evidence now coming out in legal proceedings is the allegation that ratings agency Moody's shared information with UBS which makes it very close to insider trading. That's bad news for other investment banks. "It's doubtful that this sharing of information between a rating agency and a Wall Street bank was an isolated event," Goldstein writes.

The Huffington Post backs this up with its report showing these damning emails were being fired off by so a number of in Wall Street. The implication: Wall Street traders knew they were selling junk but were still intent on ripping off the public. Expect more lawsuits.