A debt is an obligation owed by one party (the debtor) to a second party, the creditor; usually this refers to assets granted by the creditor to the debtor, but the term can also be used metaphorically to cover moral obligations and other interactions not based on economic value.
A debt is created when a creditor agrees to lend a sum of assets to a debtor. Debt is usually granted with expected repayment; in modern society, in most cases, this includes repayment of the original sum, plus interest.
In finance, debt is a means of using anticipated future purchasing power in the present before it has actually been earned. Some companies and corporations use debt as a part of their overall corporate finance strategy.
Read more about Debt: Payment, Types of Debt, Debt Syndication, Letters of Credit, Accounting Debt, Inflation and Exchange Rates, Effects of Debt, Etymology, History of Debt, Criticisms, Levels and Flows
Famous quotes containing the word debt:
“Let every man, every corporation, and especially let every village, town, and city, every county and State, get out of debt and keep out of debt. It is the debtor that is ruined by hard times.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“I wish the days to be as centuries, loaded, fragrant. Now we reckon them as bank-days, by some debt which is to be paid us, or which we are to pay, or some pleasure we are to taste.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Live within your means, never be in debt, and by husbanding your money you can always lay it out well. But when you get in debt you become a slave. Therefore I say to you never involve yourself in debt, and become no man’s surety. If your friend is in distress, aid him if you have the means to spare. If he fails to be able to return it, it is only so much lost.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)