The United States economy, and so much of the world today runs on credit, rather than just the cash or assets that a given company, banking institution, or country has at their ready disposal, in which some of that credit provided is secured against assets, and some of that credit provided, is simply provided based on the perceived credit worthiness and stability of that institution, so that having the ready access to monetary credit, allows such the opportunity to maintain, sustain, and to expand their economic growth. To the degree that credit is provided to institutions, in which that credit is thereby utilized to employ people as well as to expand businesses and the products so produced, such is more than likely to be good, and a contributing factor to the expansion and growth of a given country's gross national product.
So too, through student loans, credit card loans, mortgages, car loans, and the like, credit is extended to individuals, based on their credit worthiness as well as their income. Those loans so provided to consumers, allows those consumers to purchase in the here and now, items that they have a need of, or a desire for, as opposed to having to wait until their monetary assets equals exactly those things that they desire to purchase. When that credit is provided to consumers in which they have the prudent means or the projected prudent means to pay such back in a timely and reliable manner, such is beneficial for the consumption of items so produced in a given country; whereas, on the other hand, when that credit is provided to those that are suspect in their capacity to maintain their credit standing, or the price of that credit is too high or too onerous, that credit so extended, perpetuates a greater and greater divide between those that have and those that have not.
Specifically, in regards to credit being extended to corporations, it must be noted, that corporations that thereupon utilize credit obtained merely to take such monies and thereby purchase their own stock, in stock buybacks, or thereby to park their money into treasury bonds, or the stock market, or things that do not directly grow the business, nor add to the employment of people, nor increase the growth of that company or the gross national product, is credit that has been provided, which does not serve the people, in whole, well.
So too, credit provided to institutions as well as to individuals, which rather than being spent or utilized in the creation of things and objects that are of material worth to the general public or to the infrastructure, when utilized instead for endless speculation of financial instruments, or for chicanery to make or to extract money from others, is surely a zero-sum game, which does not benefit the country or its people, in whole. So that, the right credit so issued should be defined as credit that is utilized in a manner in which economies expand through the production of goods of value, and that consumers of such, willingly purchase or utilize, for it brings value to them or to the infrastructure that they are an integral part of. This stands in contrast to the wrong credit so issued in which those institutions and individuals utilized such, mainly for the purpose of selfishly making money from money, primarily for their own aggrandizement, however that they can do so, without creating anything of value, and caring not for their fellow citizens, which typically have been the ones so exploited, or taken advantage of.