[eyeareque]

This makes me want to ask: Where did all of the money go? It had to go somewhere, right?

[JoeAltmaier]

Its actually imaginary points. It doesn't have to go anywhere.

[eyeareque]

Sure, but if someone lost their house and the bank took it, wouldn't that mean the banks ate up all of the assets?

[mynewwork]

It didn't have to go anywhere, and in many cases it didn't. Imagine you have a house (500k) and a car(20k) in 2007. Today you still have the same house (now valued at 400k) the same car (now valued at 10k). Your net worth has dropped substantially but the money didn't go anywhere, nobody else gained by the depreciation of your car or the market price correction of your house.

[eyeareque]

I'm assuming that people who lost their homes lost their equity. I'd assume there was a transfer of wealth in those situations.

[DrJokepu]

Money is not wealth. It's a (very efficient) mechanism for exchanging wealth. "Where did all the wealth go?" would be a better question to ask. The answer is that nothing in life has inherent value, only perceived. If the perception changes, wealth can be lost (or gained).

[delecti]

The article seems to be discussing the median. The money went to the top of the curve.