I'm not sure the existence of debt in itself is as much of a problem on a macro scale as people think it is - the negative association to debt comes from an int

I'm not sure the existence of debt in itself is as much of a problem on a macro scale as people think it is - the negative association to debt comes from an intuition over personal debt like loans/credit cards, which doesn't necessarily make sense on a macro scale. Say company A lends $10 to B. B lends that $10 to C. C lends $1 each to 5 people. The total debt in this case is $10 (B owes A) + $10 (C owes B) + $5 (5 people owe C) = $25. Each borrower-lender pair increases the debt, even though its all about the same $10. Now if C defaults on their debt, it has ramifications all the way upto A. But it won't cause a collapse unless the lenders start treating the debt as less risky than it is. In the case of 2008, banks treated mortgage debt as virtually risk-free and borrowed using that debt as collateral - so the problem was that the debt was certified and treated as much less risky than it really was.