Asset Deficiency

You owe more than you have; or rather, your liabilities exceed your assets on your balance sheet. End of the world? Not necessarily. Mean you're going bankrupt? Getting delisted (if you're a public company)? Not necessarily.

Why? Because accounting laws don't always reflect market realities when counting your beans...or assets. That factory you bought for $100 million 10 years ago works just fine...and it should work another 20 years. But accounting laws required you to have depreciated it 90% by now so you carry that asset as being worth only $10 million.

Bottom line: Whenever you hear negative terms attributed to some potential crisis, you have to look into the market realities of your business and not solely trust accounting law as it can often lead those relying on it...astray.