Billions of dollars just turned out not to be there. I'm going to throw out a challenge to the idea that the "little man" was the loser here on the basis that little men do not have billions of dollars to lose. Someone bigger than little lost here.

If every man, woman and child in Germany chipped in $1,000 that still isn't a billion dollars.

It'd be around 80 billion dollars, actually

I think he confused the us billion (10⁹) with the german billion (10¹²) ;)

What? So what do German use for 10^9, Milliarden?

In French we use Milliard for billion and Trilliard for Trillions (and millions for millions).

Wow, French living in Germany for over 10 years, never realized that Billion meant something else here.

I guess I'm not rich enough, ahah.

yep. Millionen, Milliarden, Billionen, Billiarden, Trillionen, Trilliarden

but he used "billions" correctly in the first sentence

Yeah, that's probably it!

Pension funds, general investments, small-time stockholders will loose money, and all that does affect the "little man". It is just indirect and hidden enough that most won't complain.

How many people do you think live in Germany?

Less than 8,000 apparently.

Common mistake if you come from a language using the long scale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales

I guess instead of saying "a billion dollars" we should say "1 Gigadollar"

Mmm, I'd like to spend no more than half a kilorupeee on dinner.

I was surprised the first time I read about crore and lakh, they take some time to get used to.