In the world of finance, there are two types of debt, and this is debt which is negative, and debt which is positive. As would be expected, most people have negative debt. Negative debt is best defined as debt which makes you poor, debt that usually involves making payments on liabilities. Some of the things that people routinely go in debt for include cars, electronics, clothes, and other liabilities which lose value over time. Negative debt is a horrible form of debt to have, because you are making payments on something that is gradually falling in value, which means you are actually becoming poorer. Not only can you not resell these items for what you originally paid, but a portion of your monthly income is going towards paying them off as well.
Positive debt, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. This type of debt is best defined as debt which is accrued for the purchase of assets, objects which gain value over time, and or provide positive cash flow. For example, a billionaire who decides to purchase a casino which makes $1 million per month will not use his own money to do so. Why should he, when virtually every bank on the planet will loan it to him? In this hypothetical scenario, if the casino which earns $1 million monthly has a total cost of $75 million, and requires a down payment of $30 million, the billionaire could borrow the $30 million from the bank, use it towards a down payment for the casino, and then, out of the $1 million he earns per month, pay $700,000 to the bank while keeping $300,000 for himself.
Deals like this happen all the time around the world, and this is how the rich operate. You see, the casino is the asset. The billionaire is technically going $30 million into debt to purchase it, but the difference between him and most people is that he is going into debt in order to become rich, he is purchasing an asset as opposed to a liability, and because he has many times this amount in his own bank accounts, the bank is not nervous when it comes to loaning him this type of money. Finally, and most important, a portion of the cash flow from the casino, which is the asset, is going towards the repayment of the positive debt the billionaire accrued to acquire it.
In a nutshell, it is this line of thinking that separates the rich from the poor. The rich go into debt to purchase assets, while the poor go into debt to purchase liabilities. To become rich, you must see debt as the rich see it.