Debt most certainly does build wealth. For the lender, that is.

It’s kinda like those late night cable commercials: "Buy my proven system and make $150k a month working just 6.7 seconds per day two days a week." If it's so great, why aren't you just using your own plan? The real way to make money is to sell proven money making plans on late night cable.

The best example, literally a parody of itself, is the classified ads that say:
"Send me $5 to learn how to make money just by placing classified ads."
I'll give you three guesses what the secret is.

Yes, you can use debt as a tool by taking a HELOC on your house and investing it in the stock market to build wealth. Sometimes it will work. More likely, sooner or later there is a credit crisis which naturally causes the stock market to go down at the same time the bank panics and doesn’t renew your line of credit. By the way the housing market is down too and you can’t even sell the house for enough to pay for the first mortgage (which you pulled some equity out of so you could celebrate your good credit by going on a cruise). You can’t get ahead, you can’t break even and you can’t even get out. How’s that tool working for you?

What people always forget is that risk, spread over a large group of people averages out. Risk, when it hits YOU, does not average out.