(FORTUNE Magazine) – Some pretty good Russia jokes are making the rounds on Wall Street these days. A sampling:

What's the difference between a ruble and a dollar? A dollar.

And: Russia: The only country to fail at communism and capitalism!

Or: You know what Russian workers say: "We pretend to work. They pretend to pay us."

Hardy-har-har. I'd be laughing hysterically if not for the fact that Mother Russia has just taken the entire world to the cleaners. I don't think people fully comprehend the magnitude of the losses yet! Sure, every other day some bank or hedge fund comes crawling up to the confessional to reveal mammoth losses in Russian securities. But has anyone taken the time to tally these suckers up? Well, I've tried, and I'll tell you, it's ugly!

It's also kind of tricky. You have losses in all kinds of securities. You've got the vaporization in Russian stocks (check out the chart). Then you've got the losses in Russian government bonds, whereby Yeltsin's boys have essentially defaulted on some $40 billion in sovereign securities (so far!). And then you've got the losses in currency trading (the great ruble rubout!) and various derivative contracts.

Next you have to measure the carnage. Not surprisingly, most banks are referring inquiries about Russian losses to their Assistant Vice Presidents of Obfuscation. The bankers are talking about "ranges of losses" (meaning they probably don't really know themselves), or "adding to loss reserves." And of course there's probably underreporting--not to mention denial. That's why it was refreshing to see Stan Druckenmiller, George Soros' main man, on CNBC admitting quite candidly--in that droll, nasal voice of his--that Quantum had dropped about $2 billion in Russia! (Remember when Khrushchev said, "We will bury you"?)

All right, on to the tally (remember, this is broad-brush stuff). Let's start with Soros' $2 billion. Other hedge funds like Leon Cooperman's Omega and smaller outfits like Appaloosa have reportedly lost hundreds of millions. Next, the banks (most lump Russia in with emerging-market losses): Bankers Trust at $350 million. Citibank: $200 million. Bank of America: $220 million. Even the oh-so-conservative Republic Bank: $110 million. And the investment banks: Credit Suisse First Boston, $250 million (rumors on the Street are that this number is WAY underreported.) Salomon: $60 million. Merrill: $135 million. Morgan Stanley: $110 million. And let's not forget mutual funds like Lexington Troika Russia, Templeton Russia, and Phoenix Emerging Markets Bond fund, which are down $100 million more. Oh, and the European banks. They really took a beating. Barclays: $420 million. Worst of all, the Germans. One banking analyst says the total exposure of Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, and Dresdner Bank is $2.2 billion! Those securities are now worth cents on the dollar.

That makes for some serious scratch--$6.4 billion--but that's just the sliver that's public now. The credit-rating agency Fitch reportedly estimates that total losses for non-Russian investors could be as much as $100 billion. That's unbelievable! According to Derek Hargreaves of JP Morgan, Russia's entire GDP was around $450 billion last year! By the way, remember the horrible Mexican crisis in 1990? Total losses: a mere $17 billion.

So why for the love of Pete did everybody get suckered by Russia? Before Russian stocks began to fall off a cliff last year, they were some of the best performers in the world, up 159% for the year into August of 1997. The money followed the performance numbers, plain and simple.

Investing is often based on a gut feeling, and mine on Russia has always been, NO WAY! If you want to take a flier and plunk down $10,000 of mad money in the Thai Fund, go for it! Their economy's already coming back. But Russia? Just say nyet!

THE SHORTS VS. THE METS

The New York Mets are in the middle of a playoff race, and that has to make Mets CEO Fred Wilpon a happy man. But Wilpon is also in a battle of the Wall Street variety. Wilpon is one of the largest shareholders of PathoGenesis, a biotech company that produces a drug that fights cystic fibrosis. And right now, PathoGenesis is under attack by short-sellers.

The problem with PathoGenesis, say the shorts, is not so much that TOBI, the company's FDA-approved inhalable drug, doesn't work--it apparently does--rather, that the company's stock is overvalued. At $30 a share, PGNS has a market capitalization of $546 million. Pretty rich given that Pathogenesis had about $440,000 in revenues last year, and 6 cents in earnings per share last quarter.

The shorts blame the sell-side analysts. "They've jacked earnings estimates up way too high," says one buy-side analyst. Indeed, Nationsbanc Montgomery Securities figures PathoGenesis will earn $1.71 a share next year and (exactly!) $5.73 in 2002. Such analyses, say the shorts, are assuming every victim of CF will sign up for the TOBI therapy, which costs $10,000 a year, and that just ain't going to happen.

"What's been happening at this company is about as good as you can expect. Results have been excellent," says PathoGenesis CEO Bill Gantz. Wilpon, who controls nearly $25 million of the stock, must agree.