> And of course, if you are rich and starting a business, you can put all your risky loans into a "limited company", which means you can make all the profits, a

> And of course, if you are rich and starting a business, you can put all your risky loans into a "limited company", which means you can make all the profits, and walk away with no debt if the business goes south. In the US and much of the developed world, the qualifier is not "if you are rich", but "if you are rich and have a banking loan relationship through a business entity". Open a de novo small business for the first time, and you cannot get a bank loan without a personal guarantee. Factoring and business loan companies won't even approach your company until you've been on DnB for a number of years, and even then, when you get into the application process, you will often find a personal guarantee is still required. Where businesses commonly rack up unsecured debt is vendor payables. But those are typically very small until you have a proven payment track record with each vendor. The amount of debt leverage you can access as a generic, new US business entity is much a smaller ratio than you can in real estate loans (which are secured, so no real surprise there).