Money man says half of world’s wealth gone

By WND Staff

Editor’s Note: The following report is excerpted from Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert, the premium online newsletter published by the current No. 1 best-selling author, WND staff writer and columnist. Subscriptions are $99 a year or $9.95 per month for credit card users. Annual subscribers will receive a free autographed copy of Corsi’s New York Times best seller, “The Late Great USA.”

A “highly optimistic” President Barack Obama sought to encourage Americans worried over the economy and his proposals to overhaul the nation’s finances today by declaring the national crisis is “not as bad as we think” and advising them to avoid being driven by either bad or good news.

But some bad news may be too big to ignore.

Half of the world’s wealth has disappeared, Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert reports.

Stephen Schwarzman, the chief executive officer of private equity company Blackstone Group LP, told Reuters that between 40 and 45 percent of the world’s wealth had been destroyed in the past year and a half.

“This is absolutely unprecedented in our lifetimes,” he said.

Consider the following, also reported by Reuters:

  • The Asian Development bank estimated that financial assets lost around the world may have amounted to over $50 trillion in value, a collapse of wealth equivalent to a year’s worth of world economic output.
  • The World Bank concluded that the volume of world trade in 2009 will fall for the first time since 1982, suffering the biggest decline in 80 years.
  • The World Bank also predicted that world gross domestic product, or GDP, will decline for the first time since World War II, with the likelihood world GDP will experience a decline of 5 percent over 2008 figures.
  • China, the largest exporter among emerging economies, has seen 20 million jobs disappear, while India reports three million jobs were lost because of shrinking exports.
  • The Institute of International Finance, a Washington think-tank, reported net private flows to emerging markets declined 50 percent in 2008, to less than $500 billion; net private capital flows to emerging markets in 2009 are expected to decline even further, to $165 billion.
  • The World Bank anticipates that 98 developing countries will face a cumulative financing gap between $270 billion and $700 billion this year.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average reached its peak above 14,400 in July 2007. Currently, the DJIA is trading in the range of 7,000, leaving the stock market with only half its peak value.

The stock market closed Friday, March 6, 2009, two weeks ago, at 6636.94, up 32.50 points, despite trading negatively most of the day.

That day, the stock market was down almost exactly 3,000 points since Obama was elected, on Nov. 4, 2008, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9625.28. The DJIA has dropped 20 percent since President Obama was inaugurated on January 20.

Red Alert’s author, whose books “The Obama Nation” and “Unfit for Command” have topped the New York Times best-sellers list, received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972. For nearly 25 years, beginning in 1981, he worked with banks throughout the U.S. and around the world to develop financial services marketing companies to assist banks in establishing broker/dealers and insurance subsidiaries to provide financial planning products and services to their retail customers. In this career, Corsi developed three different third-party financial services marketing firms that reached gross sales levels of $1 billion in annuities and equal volume in mutual funds. In 1999, he began developing Internet-based financial marketing firms, also adapted to work in conjunction with banks.

In his 25-year financial services career, Corsi has been a noted financial services speaker and writer, publishing three books and numerous articles in professional financial services journals and magazines.

For more information on digital gold and for financial guidance during difficult times, read Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert, the premium, online intelligence news source by  the WND staff writer, columnist and author of the New York Times No. 1 best-seller, “The Obama Nation.”

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