One thing I’m finding particularly hard is getting a sense of scale for what’s unfolding in the markets, but here’s a run at the question.

Katrina was maybe a $80 Billion event, and it looks to me like Ike is probably a $30 Billion  one.  The Iraq war’s direct costs are probably 2 Billion a week.  The 9/11 attacks destroyed about $16 Billion in physical assets, and the clean up cost about $11 billion; lots more in the ripple effects.

Microsoft, Apple’s, and Google’s market cap are roughly $230, $119, and $140.

AGI’s market cap a year ago was around $200 Billion, today it’s around 10.  A year ago Fannie Mae, Lehman Brothers had market caps of was around $60 and $40 Billion each.  That’s $300 billion total, about twice the size of the numbers in the 2nd paragraph.

These are big storms. With about 100 million households in the US, $300 Billion is three thousand dollars each.

These estimates are all aweful rough.  I couldn’t quickly find estimates for the wealth distruction in the house markets, but here are a lot of write downs.  Nate Owan takes a run at a similar question.