Originally Posted by
Hoshnasi
I fear another bubble when I read comments like this. Debt should be considered a LAST RESORT, and almost only for things that have equity, e.g. property. By saying "If you say something is bad, you must not understand" is one of my biggest pet peeves when having a discussion. Its really just another way of saying "If you don't see it my way, you must be an uneducated fool."
No it's not. That's a huge logical jump. Both of course you're entitled to your pet peeves.
I disagree that debt should be considered a last resort. The leveraging of debt and/or credit are straightforward financial tools. Simple example, if I have investments returninng 10% per annum, and a car company was offering 0% financing (to the anal retentive, say it was a car I liked/wanted/needed), what's the prudent thing to do? Take money out of an appreciating portfolio and pay cash for a depreciating asset? Or go into "debt"?
Manage this debt correctly and I'd be ahead at the end of the day.
The advice/warning I'd give about debt is not to run every financial aspect of your life on credit. Because that's just dumb and foolish.