[pseudocomposer]

It’s only “misleading” if you’re so out of touch that you don’t know a substantial portion of the population is in crippling debt.

There’s nothing misleading about the fact that negative net worth is worse than zero. And a person without debt factually does have far more wealth than 10 million people in debt.

[DrProtic]

Using your logic, a person in debt living in a nice house driving a nice car is worse than a homeless person without any debt.

Another example of your logic, any MD with a huge student debt is worse off than pretty much everyone in undeveloped world?

Or a person with a business loan but a successful business.

[claudiulodro]

Real estate, automobiles, credentials/degrees, and businesses are all assets that would counterbalance their debt. (Credentials and degrees are not liquid, but you'd be hard pressed to argue that a doctor's license isn't worth many dollars).

The much more likely situation is a person with no assets or money and some credit card debt. Indeed, a person with simply no money is better off than such a person.

[BobaFloutist]

Right, and they're arguing that the quoted statistic isn't counting credentials and degrees as assets, because there's not a convention for how to value them.

[happytoexplain]

"Using your logic" is almost always an overreach that uncharitably extrapolates and puts words in a person's mouth, and this case is no different.

[DrProtic]

You used a generalization to attack the format of the message rather than its content.

If I rephrased it to a question about their thoughts how degree holders fit their model then suddenly it would be fine?