Any good financial manager would have went cash or established a short position. Even if you held, as long as you don't realize your losses you will be right back to pre crash levels in 2-3 years, just like in 2008 or any other recession.
The wealthy have the capital to take advantage of the stock market, but are also insulated from the effects of downturns due to diversified financial investments and cash on hand. Recessions are also when the wealthy expand their property holdings.
> Even if you held, as long as you don't realize your losses you will be right back to pre crash levels in 2-3 years, just like in 2008 or any other recession.
Japan still hasn't recovered from the 80s. At some point the economy is going to stop growing. A lot of growth is driven by debt which needs to be repaid. A lot of growth is driven by an increasing population which will eventually plateau, and what's worse you have to support those people (healthcare, education, housing) if you don't want them to cost even more money.
At some point the economy isn't going to just keep growing. I have no idea when that will be, but the market doesn't just go up over time as if it's some law of nature.
If 50 trillion dollars are "printed", then yes, the economy will appear to be growing purely based on the prices of stocks going up. Whether that represents real growth is another matter entirely
Their net worth is down if they held. The wealthy were just as unlikely to sell out before the crash as anyone else, they don’t have A magic future prediction machine.
> The wealthy have the capital to take advantage of the stock market, but are also insulated from the effects of downturns due to diversified financial investments and cash on hand. Recessions are also when the wealthy expand their property holdings.
None of this negates the fact that the crash wiped a significant chunk of their net worth out. Either they were invested in the market (real estate, stocks, bonds, etc) and they were accumulating wealth in a Picketty fashion until they got slammed by the crash or they missed the crash because they weren’t accumulating. You can’t have it both ways.
Real people lost a lot of real money. Bear in mind most of the wealth of most well off people is held in shares. It's just not possible that all shareholders all sold before the crash. A lot of people lost a lot of money.
The problem is not so much that some rich people are now somewhat less rich. Boo hoo. Let's rephrase that another way though.
A lot of people that previously had the wealth and assets to invest in new businesses, grow existing businesses, create jobs and fund the development of new technology now don't. These are the primary ways wealth is actually used, and now there is less of it around to do those things. So a lot less of those things are going to happen now. If you either work for a company that pays you, or have customers that buy your stuff, this is a bad thing to happen. Companies will have less to pay you with, and customers will have less money to buy stuff with because the same applies to them too.
Or employee ownership is allowed to expand as a means to grow a biz. True, that won't fill all the gaps. But it's certainly an option worthy of more attention.
The wealthy have the capital to take advantage of the stock market, but are also insulated from the effects of downturns due to diversified financial investments and cash on hand. Recessions are also when the wealthy expand their property holdings.