Debt is avoiding payment

Debt is a way of avoiding payment for desert. 

If I pay you for your work or your goods with a loan you must repay, then the market for goods and services becomes an exchange for wealth. 

American employers paid American workers with loans rather than wages; Chinese producers charged American consumers loans rather than payments. 

There is probably a direct correspondence between the consumer debt of the American worker and the business debt of the American retailer.