Why can one person with a million dollars control only that million, while another person with the same million controls ten million, a hundred million, or more?
The answer is leverage.
Finance did not invent leverage. Thousands of years ago people learned that a lever and the right fulcrum could move far more than their own strength allowed. Since then the same principle has been applied to machines, trade, companies, real estate, banking, insurance and capital markets.
This book is about that amplification game, and about what it amplifies on the way down as well as on the way up.
This book is being written in public. The skeleton is fixed: seven parts, twenty-two chapters, a preface and an epilogue, each with its own page. Stories, people, cases and Canadian practice are added chapter by chapter. 1 section is in draft so far; the rest are outlines.
自序
How a physics student ended up building a business on leverage.
第一部分：一根木棍
给我一个支点
How can one person move something far heavier than they could ever lift?
人类真正的超能力
Pyramids, railways and rockets were not built by stronger muscles.
有钱和控制钱，是两回事
Ownership is not control: what you own is not what you can command.
第二部分：富人的游戏规则
为什么越有钱的人，越容易借到钱
If the wealthy already have money, why do they borrow, and why do banks lend to them first?
巴菲特有一笔不用急着还的钱
Insurance float, and the kind of capital great investors actually compete for.
马斯克为什么不需要拥有 100%
Everyone gets 24 hours. How do some people direct enormous resources at once?
用别人的钱，买下别人的公司
Borrow to buy a company, then let the company repay the debt. How is that possible?
第三部分：其实你早就在用杠杆
你人生最大的杠杆，可能已经买过了
Put $200,000 down on a $1M home. What happens when it rises 10%, or falls 10%?
世界上有两种债
Debt is not automatically bad. What matters is what sits behind it.
为什么有人越欠钱越富
Stop looking at debt alone. Look at assets, liabilities and cash flow together.
第四部分：加拿大人的隐藏杠杆
加拿大中产其实坐在一座资本金矿上
Don't only ask what your assets are worth. Ask what they could control.
如果 10 万可以投资 20 万呢？
Two identical investors, one using only their own money and one using an investment loan, thirty years on.
如果借钱投资，税务规则还能改变成本呢？
Two people both borrow at 6%. Are they really paying the same cost of capital?
房子里的钱为什么一定要睡觉？
A $1M home with $700,000 of equity: is that just wealth, or also capital capacity?
公司里的 100 万，到底是谁的钱？
Two business owners each hold $1M in their corporation. Why can their outcomes diverge so far in ten years?
第五部分：当杠杆遇见时间
富人真正购买的是时间
Why can thirty years of low-cost capital be worth more than a cheap one-year loan?
杠杆上面，还可以再放杠杆
Modern finance is a machine built from layer upon layer of leverage.
第六部分：杠杆也会杀人
他们不是看错了，他们只是没活到最后
With leverage, the first question is not whether you are right, but whether you last long enough.
当全世界同时去杠杆
1929, LTCM, 2008, Archegos: on the way up, leverage makes everyone look like a genius.
杠杆不会让你变聪明
Leverage creates nothing; it only amplifies what is already there.
第七部分：找到你的支点
普通人真正拥有的七个支点
Income, credit, assets, cash flow, time, knowledge, relationships and organisation.
不要问“我有多少钱”
Ask instead: how much capital can I safely control, and for how many years can it work?
Most people work to own more.
The wealthy learn to control more.
Those who truly understand leverage first find their fulcrum.
This book is general education, not investment, tax or lending advice. Borrowing to invest involves risk, including the risk that the value of your investment falls while the loan remains payable in full. Suitability depends on individual circumstances.