Most of this "decimated" wealth never existed in the first place. Why do people pretend otherwise? So they can throw around big numbers in a silly article?
While the number does represent "paper" wealth, it is a fair measure of purchasing potential. For example if you have $1m in stocks, at that point in time you can sell the stocks and buy $1m worth of goods. If that number drops to $500k then you only have the ability to purchase that value.
Lets not post links to cnn anymore. They tend to be misleading, and rarely involve more than surface analysis of the situation. The statistics involved are often either inaccurate, irrelevant, or both. The methodology used to create the statistics is rarely (if ever) stated. I'm sure we can find a better source for economic news.
The title of this post is misleading. It implies GDP has falled by 1.3T whereas wealth in this case has fallen 1.3T.