A good roundup on the degrees of debt, Ben Le Fort. I just wanted to add that, in rare cases, people get into debt with the intention of raising capital to earn higher return on it than they would pay on their debt.

When they pull it off, it is a great strategy. But many attempts to do this fail because the investor is not savvy enough or the individual is not disciplined enough to be an investor, squandering it away on consumables.

Interestingly, when you push this perspective to the extreme, you may argue that such a loan was entered into because the individual did not have the capital to so invest, thereby aligning with your assertion.

But it is really a different class of ‘need’, in my opinion.