This is Steve and this is Steve's uncle
and Steve is in a bit of a bind.
Not only does he not have any money
but he also owes Michael,
who is not depicted here.
He owes Michael $3. So he actually
has a negative net worth.
Steve has a net worth of -3.
Steve's uncle cares about Steve
and feels bad that he doesn't even have
a 0 net worth;
he has a negative net worth!
And so Steve's uncle wants to at least
take away some of this pain.
He at least wants to get Steve back
to a neutral net worth, a 0 net worth.
So he decides to take away
Steve's negative net worth.
He wants to take away that -3.
What happens if you take away that -3?
Well, that should get you back to 0.
If you take away anything...
if you have something
and you take it away,
it should go back to 0.
Similarly if you owe people things
and that owing people things
is taken away, it also gets back to 0.
And another way to think about it is
how Steve's uncle would actually
take that liability,
take that debt away from Steve.
Well, the easiest way he could do it
if Steve is starting at -3 net worth
is for his uncle to give Steve $3,
so that he(Steve) can get back
to a net worth of 0.
So hopefully, that makes it
a little bit clearer,
that this and this
are intuitively equivalent.