American's own assets of almost $60 trillion. This includes:
$17.7 trillion in real estate,
$3.7 trillion in durable goods,
$4.4 trillion in savings deposits,
$884 billion in money market accounts,
$2.1 trillion in credit market instruments,
$6.3 trillion in corporate equities,
$3.6 trillion in mutual fund shares,
$1.1 trillion in life insurance reserves,
$9.4 trillion in pension reserves and on and on.
And what is the remaining $ 20 trillion? How real are the "savings deposits", "credit market instruments", "corporate equities", "mutual fund shares", "insurance reserves", "pension reserves"? What backs them up?
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Are these number true?
And where is the remaining $20 Trillion?
Is there any other hard asset in amounts equivalent to real estate?
How much percent wise is actual construction cost (labour, mashinery, materials) as compared to "preceived value" i.e. location, tax benefits, location, infrastructure, location, job market, location ..
And what happens to all "instruments", "shares", "funds", "equities", "reserves" etc. if RE market contracts - say 1 trillion? (5% of total is not unrealistic.)
PS. Sorry for spamming, but all you gentelmen seem to be as interested in this particular topic as I am interested in Your insight. Also, these are the most compact set of numbers I have seen regarding overall financial status of USA. (Only 20 trillion of total missing)
PPS. To me this looks terrible. 21 Trillion of RE and durable goods and twice the amount of "preceived values in future" built on it. And all this has to service $ 1 Trillion current account deficit.
The link in post #239 has all the details of the $60 trillion.