Very true.
To take an extreme example, if someone starts a Ponzi tomorrow, tells the investors they have made 10,000,000 times their initial investment every year, then is exposed several years later, is it really true that "wealth was destroyed"? Hardly -- it never existed.
Similarly, though I certainly don't consider them "Ponzis", the banks were writing and/or depending upon insurance that either didn't really exist or was a massive liability in itself. The banks' (investment and commercial) market caps were bogus the past 10 years, at least -- that wealth never existed. How can you destroy something that never existed?
"Destruction of wealth" would be the destruction of something real, like California sinking into the ocean, Superman-I style.
This crisis more a correction of perception, which is not to say it isn't very painful. Said pain can, in fact, lead to a destruction of real wealth, e.g. if everyone holes up out of fear and simply stops producing anything.
