I mean yes it is unsurprising that people with nearly infinite money are materially impacted by losing half of it.

But neither is at the level they were at before, at least in comparison to the market and economic growth overall.

> Not so. It's a lot worse now because before, people just monopolized fixed quantities of gold. If they made bad bets, their gold holdings would shrink.

Yes, this is precisely the "zero-sum" thing you said is problematic.