Before I understood finance, I cast a reflection and didn’t have fangs. Also, I didn’t understand why billionaires like Kwek Leng Beng would have a mortgage. Kwek Leng Beng, for example, is worth $7.2 billion and he can buy houses like a fat man buys McNuggets. That caused me to assume rich people took out mortgages mainly to mock me. Now that I’ve lost the last vestiges of my humanity (and hence understand loans better), I know why they do it. There’s a great money lesson in it for the rest of us peasants as well: