--- In LibertarianEnterprise@yahoogroups.com, "Zack Bass" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > I heard this talk-show host (Hugh Hewitt) tonight saying that > "Americans lost a trillion dollars of Wealth" in one day because of > the refusal (so far) to bail out the fat cats. > Hello, the Stock Market is a Market; it is, like all Markets, Zero-Sum. > (Yes, Investing can produce Wealth eventually, but > Trading/Buying/Selling Stock neither increases nor decreases Total > Wealth at the time it is done.) > > When people talk like this, I ask, where do these people think the > Wealth GOES? Obviously, a subset of Americans lost a lot of money, > and the complement of that subset must have gained exactly the same > amount of Wealth. Cars and MRI machines and Gold Rings and Bridges > did not magically disappear; all of the Wealth still exists. If that > were not so - if Total Wealth could be lost On Paper in one day - then > it could also be created On Paper in one day... as much as you like. > > So why do these people, who are far more educated in Economics than I, > TALK like that? It is quite clear to me that Wealth is not > Disappearing in one day; surely they can figure it out too. > "These people" are calculating wealth (especially their own) in terms of paper dollars. What they (some of them) don't realize is that the Federal Reserve has been stealing the value of their paper dollars (by printing more) and this last couple of weeks, the market has revealed to them how much has been stolen from them.
They did indeed have their wealth diminished because they chose to keep it denominated in paper dollars instead of tangible objects. Even Treasury Sec Paulsen got caught. His personal $700 million is mostly calculated in stocks of the company he used to run and he has a very personal interest in getting a subsidized bailout!!
