Tallying 2008’s losses

How much did we lose, and will 2009 be better?

We survived 2008, said Stephen Webster in The Raw Story, “though for some of us, just barely.” The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 34 percent and the S&P 500 shed 38 percent, in their worst annual losses since the 1930s; the Nasdaq dropped 41 percent. In all, “$6.9 trillion poured from investors’ coffers in the worst series of cascading disasters since the Great Depression.”

“You may be wondering: Where did that $6.9 trillion go?” said Robert Stacy McCain in The Other McCain. “It didn’t go anywhere,” since that money only existed as equities value—you only lost the money if you sold your stock. No matter how much equities, or your home, dropped in value, what you can sell them for is what they’re worth. “People don’t understand economics.”

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