system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: where does all the money go after the stock market crashes?

is anyone getting rich because of the economic downturn?
gpt
Money isn't a physical thing, it's an idea.  It doesn't have objective existence.

*Cash* is a physical thing with objective existence, but cash isn't money, cash is *worth* money.  We've got a lot lot lot lot more money in the world than there is cash, though.

When the stock market crashes, the amount of money in the world is reduced.  That money doesn't "go" anywhere, mostly, it just ceases to be.

Say you buy ten shares of FOO for $10/share, so you spent $100.  A month passes, and the FOO company is in the news with some cool new product, and now people are willing to pay $20/share for FOO because they believe it will make a big profit in the future.  Your ten shares are now worth $200 because people are willing to pay more for them.  So we say that that $200 exists in the stock market, even if you don't sell your shares.

You hold on to these shares, and a few months later there's a recession.  Now, not only do people no longer believe FOO will make as big a profit, but fewer of them have money to spend to buy shares anyway.  With so few buyers around, when someone does sell some shares of FOO, they can't find a buyer willing to pay more than $5/share... so they sell.

You still have the same ten shares of stock, but because other people just sold their shares of FOO for $5 each, we know that's what they're worth now.  So your ten shares are now worth $50, because that's what people would be willing to pay if you wanted to sell them.  $150 of your money has vanished from the total amount we claim the stock market is worth.