Where did the wealth go?

[SleeplessinSoCal]

Was it always an estimation?

"America’s richest lost $660 billion collectively in 2022 — Elon Musk lost the most"

If they lost the money. Where is it now?

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/27/elon-musk-lost-the-most-money-of-all-americas-billionaires-in-2022.html

[drray23]

1. A lot of it is not realized gains. Its based on market value for stocks

So, if this goes down, the estimated wealth does as well even though no money was exchanged. I guess some of the money not invested in these stocks may have been parked in bonds or other safer investment vehicles.

[brooklynite]

2. Wealth doesn't just mean "cash"

A lot of that reported wealth was the value of stock holdings based on dropping share prices.

Consider the Great Depression. The lost value in the Stock Market crash didn't "go" somewhere; it just disappeared.

[gratuitous]

3. The "wealth" wasn't really lost

It's just been weighed in the balance, and everyone who agreed that the maguffin was worth a whole lot of money in days gone by now agrees that it's worth $660 billion less today.

I still marvel at the notion of short-selling, where a loss of value in a stock can be monetized by an astute and daring trader.

[multigraincracker]

4. Forget the minimum wage.

We need a maximum wage.

[bucolic_frolic]

5. The Money Multiplier operating in reverse

Money "grows" as stock markets rise the same as the Fed creating money for loans and fractional reserve banking. You bring in a dollar, you lend 90 cents of it. Now there's $1.90 in circulation.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. VALUATION is not value. Valuations declined. Actual value is unaffected. .

[MichMan]

8. My 401k never really lost anything?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. Unrealized gains are not real gains, "unrealized" meaning not converted to cash or hard assets. . nt

[Fiendish Thingy]

14. Only if you moved everything to cash.

You still own the same number of shares, they’re just not worth as much as they used to be.

Check back this time next year.

[IbogaProject]

7. Paper wealth

Stock losses.

[PurgedVoter]

10. It is possible that someone borrowed stock to sell to Elon and made money repaying the stock loan

Someone with contacts and money could have seen this coming and decided it was worth the investment.

[zipplewrath]

11. To some extent

Despite what people are saying here, it went to those who "sold short". They gained money because other people lost it. That's not all of it in any sense and as people are saying, in some sense it is "value" of something that was only realized if you sold it at the time that the value was at that level. But in the end the entire system from top to bottom is predicated on "winners and losers".

[Igel]

16. Just means that somebody gained something.

But it's the same with houses.

My mother asked the same question when her house dropped from $260k to $160k. "Who stole my money?" Had a lot of trouble explaining it to her. She never had the money, it's what somebody though others would pay based on comparables. Stocks are a bit different, since they're fungible, right?

But the principle's the same.

[Shermann]

12. Some wealth is little more than a mirage

If you get something like a run on the banks, the mirage disappears

[Bettie]

13. And yet, they still have

more money than they can spend in 10 lifetimes. Boo hoo.

[KentuckyWoman]

15. Every time I read that

I think they need to check their jacket pockets.
That's where I find most of my lost things.

It only matters when you need it. For billionaires that's generally never. For the vast majority of people like me filling the gap between living and social security - with a little bit in the market that took me lifetime to cobble together it can matter an awful lot.