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Let's take a closer look at the category of goods known as assets.
Not all assets are the same.
Some assets are really easy to use and some aren't.
Yes, a fancy piece of jewelry might be worth a lot of money, but it's much harder to use to buy lunch than something like a $20 bill.
For this reason, accountants tend to break up assets into two categories: cash and cash equivalents (items that are easy to spend), and non-cash equivalents.
Being able to distinguish the two types of assets is critical, because companies often run into trouble when they have a lot of assets, but none of them are easy to spend.
When this happens, they are forced to sell their non-cash equivalent assets for less than they are worth in order to keep themselves from going bankrupt.