[jacksnipe]

I mean, that's a very corporate accounting way of looking at it. But countries are not corporations, or even banks, and the abstraction is so leaky it's pretty much never worth using.

[hosh]

Double entry accounting has properties that allow it to track the flow of money, not just its state (current balance), so it useful for countries as well as corporations.

[lxgr]

Even for corporations and individuals it works that way. If you write a check to yourself, it represents both an asset and a liability whose effects on your equity exactly cancel out.