I buy a house, get a house and a mortgage. My wealth is net 0. One house owned. One house-value owed.
Need to consider temporal dimension: a house is owned because I'm already converting my future income into a house.
There's a difference between "net $0 now because I'm borrowing from my substantial cumulative future creation of wealth" vs "net $0 now because I'm not productive and won't be".
The temporal aspect is what makes it hard, but it's what I was trying to comment on. Wealth now and income later are effectively fungible, in todays world to a much greater extent than the past. This includes negative wealth (debt).
Need to consider temporal dimension: a house is owned because I'm already converting my future income into a house.
There's a difference between "net $0 now because I'm borrowing from my substantial cumulative future creation of wealth" vs "net $0 now because I'm not productive and won't be".