Because a lot of that "wealth" consists of money that somebody or something owes to somebody else.I don't know what the ratio of real money to debt masquerading as money is, but it's surely less than one.
That being true (not enough real money to pay the debts, perhaps not enough real money to even service the debts), the collapse is a certainty.
I do get what you’re saying, but isn’t that really a transfer of fixed wealth, not the destruction thereof? If the wealth isn’t backed, it means somebody loses, but the fixed wealth remains only to be acquired by its creditors. No?