This article points to where all the money goes - but unfortunately no names or organizations:
http://news.goldseek.com/TrendInvestor/1229359632.php
Felix
http://news.goldseek.com/TrendInvestor/1229359632.php
Felix
Quote from BVM88:
To summarise what others have said here, there can't be "an equal number of winners" because prices are set at the margin. It only takes one seller at a lower price to reduce everyone's wealth.
Quote from peilthetraveler:
So basically you could say that your money went to china.
Interesting point.Quote from jamis359:
Wealth is often a mirage!
On 11/07/07 GOOG closed at $741 on about 8 mil shares traded. GOOG's float is 241 mil shares. Today GOOG is at $310 per share.
An obvious statement that many journalists make is that GOOG has destroyed wealth equal to ($741 - $310)*241000000 total shares outstanding = $103 BILLION. This sort of calculation may be popular but it's wrong. On 11/07/07 only about 3% of the float traded at the $740 price. If the remaining 97% of GOOG owners tried to liquidate that day, the price of GOOG would have collapsed to a much lower level.
And so the wealth didn't go anywhere, it never really existed in the first place.
Quote from jamis359:
Wealth is often a mirage!
On 11/07/07 GOOG closed at $741 on about 8 mil shares traded. GOOG's float is 241 mil shares. Today GOOG is at $310 per share.
An obvious statement that many journalists make is that GOOG has destroyed wealth equal to ($741 - $310)*241000000 total shares outstanding = $103 BILLION. This sort of calculation may be popular but it's wrong. On 11/07/07 only about 3% of the float traded at the $740 price. If the remaining 97% of GOOG owners tried to liquidate that day, the price of GOOG would have collapsed to a much lower level.
And so the wealth didn't go anywhere, it never really existed in the first place.
Quote from intradaybill:
Often, valuation is used to describe wealth. Mark-to-market that is.
They actually mean that valuations dropped that much.
Do you know of a better system to describe wealth?
Quote from joeski:
Sorry to drag this up again, but I still need help understanding this issue. Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the thread.
I started this thread by stating that I understood how money is created by the banks, but maybe I don't. In the explanation above, it appears that banks can only lend money they have on deposit. Even though a deposit is in a sense a liability, it's still money that came onto the balance sheet from outside, it wasn't created. It's no different from money given to a venture capital fund, for example, to be invested, except that a deposit might be called back at any time. It isn't money "created out of thin air", which is what I assume is happening. But maybe that's my problem?
Here is a thought experiment to illustrate. Suppose a bank has $1M in assets. If they are really restricted to the 10% fractional reserve, then they can loan $900K. If, as stated in the quote above, those loans get written down to half that, the bank is screwed, because they owe the depositors money that is now gone.
But I thought I understood that banks could push it even further, but considering the loan to be an asset, and lending against its presumed repayment. In this scenario, the bank with $1M in actual cash in the beginning could lend $10M. But then (and here is the thought experiment), if they foreclose on all $10M worth of loans and liquidate for 20% of the loan amount, they have the $1M with which to repay depositors and they have $1M in profit.
Obviously something is wrong here, because when loans are written down that severely, the banks become insolvent. So is it simply my exaggeration of the multiplier effect that is wrong, and banks really are restricted to lending an amount that is less than their actual deposits? Or do I have that right, but am missing another piece?
Thanks again.