$30.1 Trillion Dollars Worth of Value Was Lost From the Global Markets in 2008

$30.1 trillion dollars.

According to a recent article on Bloomberg.com, this represents the total value that was shed from global stock markets in 2008.

This doesn't include the plummeting housing markets or the decline of any other asset (and most assets certainly declined in value in 2008).

As you can see, 2008 was a very expensive year for the world.

Yesterday we wrote an article in which we outlined the hardest hit markets throughout the world.

While markets such as the UK, United States, Russia and Canada didn't appear on the top ten list of the biggest losers, they certainly contributed the most to the $30.1 trillion dollar figure.

Let's put this into perspective.

The population of the world, at last check, was 6.6 billion.

This means that every man, woman and child lost an average of $4,545 in 2008. Throw declining real estate values into the mix and the numbers get even worse.

Obviously there is a very large percentage of the world's population that do not invest in the stock market - this just makes the numbers even more savage for people who do have some of their savings invested in the markets.

From Slovenia to Russia to Australia to the United States, no one was spared from the wrath of the crippling global recession (except for Tunisia, it seems). The dominos fell in rapid succession and no one was spared. Emerging economies were crushed as foreign investors pulled their capital and commodity prices plunged.

Major economies buckled under the strain of frozen credit markets.

People all throughout the world watched as home values continued to plunge and stock market values tanked across the board. To add insult to injury, many companies laid off workers, resulting in higher unemployment numbers. Not only did people have to watch as their life savings went up in smoke, but they had to worry about their jobs as well.

So what now?

A continued dramatic plunge, similar to the Great Depression?

A protracted bear market that bores people to tears?

A slow and gradual recovery?

A rapid and dramatic recovery?

What now for the global markets?

Filed under: The Economic Meltdown