<story><title>Half of all adults in the world have less than $2,300 in wealth (2016)</title><url>https://qz.com/848181/half-of-all-adults-in-the-world-have-less-than-2300-in-wealth-credit-suisse-global-wealth-report-indicates/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Matt3o12_</author><text>But does this also include negative wealth? Especially in the US, it seems to me that many people have a lot of debt – staring from credit card debt to a too expensive car lease (and a new one ever 3 years) to the house they have payments on for ~50 years? This way, it seems to me that a lot of people (especially younger ones) have a wealth of ~-10,000€.</text></item><item><author>danesparza</author><text>I&amp;#x27;d like to point out this article consistently uses the word &amp;#x27;wealth&amp;#x27;.  I take this to mean all assets owned, including cash assets.&lt;p&gt;Let that sink in a while.&lt;p&gt;That would include vehicles, houses, clothes, everything.&lt;p&gt;I am musing on this problem from my air conditioned office at work.  We truly have first world problems.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>toomuchtodo</author><text>Debt is “bad” when used for depreciating assets (cars, credit cards). Debt is “good” when used as leverage on appreciating assets (real estate) or working assets (tools, business vehicles, servers, or anything else being used to generate cash flow).&lt;p&gt;If I have an interest only loan on something like a taxi medallions (thanks Planet Money for the example!), I generate cash flow with that asset, and can walk away from the debt at any time through bankruptcy of the owning entity, that’s still positive wealth (cash flow).&lt;p&gt;The less capital you need to obtain access to greater amounts of cash flow, the better the cash on cash return&amp;#x2F;investment quality.</text></comment>
<story><title>Half of all adults in the world have less than $2,300 in wealth (2016)</title><url>https://qz.com/848181/half-of-all-adults-in-the-world-have-less-than-2300-in-wealth-credit-suisse-global-wealth-report-indicates/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Matt3o12_</author><text>But does this also include negative wealth? Especially in the US, it seems to me that many people have a lot of debt – staring from credit card debt to a too expensive car lease (and a new one ever 3 years) to the house they have payments on for ~50 years? This way, it seems to me that a lot of people (especially younger ones) have a wealth of ~-10,000€.</text></item><item><author>danesparza</author><text>I&amp;#x27;d like to point out this article consistently uses the word &amp;#x27;wealth&amp;#x27;.  I take this to mean all assets owned, including cash assets.&lt;p&gt;Let that sink in a while.&lt;p&gt;That would include vehicles, houses, clothes, everything.&lt;p&gt;I am musing on this problem from my air conditioned office at work.  We truly have first world problems.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rukittenme</author><text>You have to define &amp;quot;wealth&amp;quot; if you want a worthwhile answer.  After all, debt is a component of a person&amp;#x27;s assets.&lt;p&gt;If you remember your accounting courses: assets are equal to the sum of all liabilities and equity.  Meaning mortgage debt and home equity combine to form your total home assets.  A person may have $1m in assets and $900k in liabilities.  Or a person could have $200k in assets but $50k in liabilities.  Which person is more &amp;quot;wealthy&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;I suppose its a matter of opinion because, after all, we haven&amp;#x27;t defined a goal.  Is a low debt to equity ratio desirable?  Depends on what you&amp;#x27;re trying to accomplish.  Is high cash flow desirable?  As an end state, yes that&amp;#x27;s desirable but what if that end state requires a large amount of debt to achieve?</text></comment>