Forty percent of the world's wealth was destroyed in last five quarters. It is an almost incomprehensible number. —Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of the Blackstone Group, as quoted by Ben Hirschler and Jason Subler in "Confidence evaporates, currency row brews at Davos"

And this is an almost incomprehensible formulation of what has happened. As long as economists, politicians, business leaders persist in this delusory understanding of wealth and their societies accede to it there can be no real solution to real problems.

As for the destruction of wealth, the U.S. has done a pretty good job of it in Iraq and at home, followed perhaps by the Israelis in Lebanon and Gaza.

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