Stocks and making and losing money

I'm sick of hearing about pundits talk about how X dollars was lost in the market.  After the first bailout package failed that figure was $1.2 T.  What those people either don't understand or aren't telling you is that it is all ZERO SUM.  If you buy a stock at $100 and it falls to $90, you have lost $10.  However, the person who sold it to you has made $10 (without using technical terms, you can think of it like this: they can buy pack the same stock they sold for $10 less, and be in the same position they were, only with $10 more).

With mortgages that default.  Say I buy a house for $500K on one of those funky upside down loans.  I then lose my job (for those than know me, this came pretty close to being true).  I can no longer afford my mortgage, so I default.  Over the same period, the home is now only worth $400K.  The bank can forclose, but they have an assett worth $100K less than they sold it for.  Did that money evaporate?  NO NO NO.  That money wound up in the hands of the person I bought the house from.

Yes, people are losing their shirts.  But they are just one of the many subgroups of scoundrels.  Most of those people have made out quite well.  

Ech.