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Steve Schwarzman, chairman of the Blackstone Group, said in a speech at New York's Japan Society this week that "between 40% and 45% of the world's wealth has been destroyed in little less than a year and a half".
A look at stock markets in the United States and around the world suggest he is right. Since March of 2008 the Dow Jones is down 41%, the S&P down 43%, the FTSE 100 down 35% and Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern markets all down 40% or so.
But there's something about Schwarzman I don't trust. Perhaps it was the profile in the Wall Street Journal, which claimed he shouted at his butler because his shoes squeaked, and that his favourite food is stone-crab claws that cost $400 per pound.
When he tries to be oracular, like Warren Buffett, he comes over shifty. Was his estimate of global wealth destruction an example of dodgy Wall Street asset pricing? Time for some fuzzy maths.
The UN's World Institute for Development Economics Research includes in the world's wealth "all the most significant components of household wealth, including financial assets and debts, land, buildings and other tangible property." This generally adds up to three times global GDP, around $165 trillion at the start of 2008.
But wealth is not divided evenly among the world's 6.7 billion people. Of that $165 trillion, 40% is controlled by 67 million, or 1% of humankind. Of these, 22 million live in the US, four million in the UK. Using Schwarzman's 45% drop claim, they will have seen their wealth fall from $985,000 to $542,000. The 50% of the world who control 1% of its wealth will have seen their average drop from $373 to $205.
Perhaps Schwarzman's right. Or maybe his view is skewed by the fact that Blackstone's stock price is down 60% over the year and the poor chap had to cut his base salary by 99.98% - to $350,000.
*"It feels like the entire city just got fired," a designer friend says. Despair has yielded to "pessimism porn", the joys of ultra-negative economic prognostication. Fans sidle up with a grin and say things like: "Did you see the latest car sales data? They make the Great Depression look like Disneyland."
* Manhattan's restaurants must be in trouble. The last two I visited, both classy joints, served me free desserts. Far better than a sneer and the table by the loo.
