Sec. 15] CAPITAL ACCOUNTS 89

expectations of the future are changed and confused.
Plans are given up, orders are countermanded, and trade
is stopped. Assets, representing as they do the value of
future expectations, suffer sudden and heavy reductions.

§ 15

Briefly summarizing this chapter we may say that a person
 who has liabilities is, in a sense, a trustee. He holds
more than he owns. He holds all his assets; he owns
only the margin between these and his liabilities. His
responsibility for the liabilities requires that he should
keep his own margin of capital comparatively safe. But
there is always risk of losing his margin and becoming
insolvent. This risk, whether large or small, is necessarily
assumed by his creditors, and its existence should be
recognized in law as well as in business practice. The
record of the relations which at any time exist between
assets, liabilities, and the margin of capital separating
them constitutes what we have called the “capital accounts.”