No one with an abacus, a calculator, or a mainframe will ever know what the global credit crisis has cost in real money. Lost jobs means lost tax revenue. Lost bank capital means a drop in share values. Government aid must be near $1.5 trillion when the U.S.'s $700 billion is added to what all other nations have put in to shore up banks.
The Bank of England reckons the cost of the near-collapse of the financial system is $2.8 trillion. It does not say precisely how it came up with that figure, but in the guessing game that hardly matters.
Looking at the issue from a simpleton's perspective, Citigroup (NYSE: C, Stock Forum) has lost $200 billion of is market cap. The number for Wachovia (NYSE: WB, Stock Forum) is more like $100 billion. Loses to Lehman and WaMu shareholders are of a similar magnitude. By these calculations, investors in U.S. financial companies have seen well in excess of $1 trillion go down the drain.
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