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Six trillion dollars can’t just vanish, you know
ONE of my kids was staring at the front page headline on the newspaper: "Six trillion dollars lost in global markets", it said.
"Who took it?" she asked.
"That's naughty."
I thought about this. This was a good question. Before I could attempt to answer it, she asked an even better one. "Whose money was it?”
I answered the last question first. “Not your Dad's," I said. "I'm too smart to invest my money in risky stocks.”
The following day, I asked my friend Todd, a man who recently
changed job from banker to property fund dealer, to answer the first question. "The six trillion dollars lost from the stock markets in the global financial crisis -- where did they actually go?"
He was on his way to his car, but he stopped and thought for a moment. "Nowhere. They never existed. It was a nominal six trillion: just figures on paper."
As I watched him leave (in a sports car -- bankers adhere strictly to stereotype), I realised his answer had left me more puzzled, not less. If the six trillion dollars that disappeared never existed, there's no
crisis. So why are the newspapers full of panic?
I put the point to the wisest person I know, my mentor-bartender. "It's true," he said. "The money never existed. They call it a bubble because it is an insubstantial tiling that disappears with a sudden pop, like a mirage, or the career of the guy who played Luke Skywalker."
I Ie picked up a glass to wipe and explained: "But banks thought it existed, so they spent unimaginably large amounts of money buying the stuff in the form of home loans, stocks, hedge funds and other investments."
I knocked back my shot of mineral water on the rocks. "So that's why banks are in trouble. Well, it serves them right," I said. "For once, the rich get into a whole heap of trouble, while widows, orphans and regular people like me. escape."
He finished polishing his glass and slowly shook his head. "Sorry to bring you bad news," he said. "But where do you think the banks got the money to buy all these bad investments?"
I froze. He was smiling one of those creepy smiles that have no actual smiliness in them.
He nodded. "Yes. They used the money that normal people put into their accounts — widows, orphans and general, struggling nonentities, like you. No offence intended. They used your savings and pension funds.
And now they're scared they may not have enough money-to pay up when you want to take it out. Banks can go bankrupt, you know. And they can take ordinary people's savings with them when they go."
Ah. Now I saw where the crisis was. 1 asked him to hit me with another shot of mineral water on the rocks and downed it in one.
The kids were still awake when I got home so I told them the bad news.
"You know that six trillion dollars that was lost in the stock market? I have some really bad news for you. It was your Dad's."
"Oh." said one. "Never mind. Dad. I'll share my pocket money with you."
I patted her head. "Thanks." You know what? A pledge like that one is worth six trillion dollars in any currency, no doubt about it.
If you know where the money is. write to our columnist via: www.vittachi.com.