In what I guess is confusing to many, when a company buys another company, or even purchases capital equipment of some kind, it can finance that by a loan, and the result is that the asset side of the ledger doesn't take a hit. But when a company pays salary, it can't finance that with a loan, as expenditures on salary do cause the asset side to take a hit. This is the difference.

I understand that to many people they seem like they are in the same category of "spending money" but spending money on an income earning investment is not the same as spending money on operating expenses.