I haven't read that book. I should check it out.
“Our homes can only be assets if and only if they are generating money.”
I like this. Having a positive return on any asset; more equity than debt; and the income must exceed expenses and debt service payments; is essential to growing one’s net worth.
Debt is a funny thing. I like to call it magic money. It's magic in the sense that people do not recognize it as a liability (or lack of ownership), only as a payment.
And to use a physics analogy, cash is matter, when debt is antimatter. Both cancel each other out. But people give more value to cash because they’ve earned it, as opposed to debt which they didn't. When something is easy to get, like debt, people subconsciously place less value in it. It's not unheard of that people have $50,000 (outside of their emergency fund) in their savings account, and $20,000 in debt, and they continue to hold the debt and keep the cash.