why does "equity" show up on my balance sheet?

[Dave Peticolas]

Seth Gordon writes:
> When I set up my GnuCash accounts, I followed the instructions in the
> documentation and made every initial balance in every account a
> transfer from an "Equity" account.  When I generate a balance sheet,
> "Equity" is one of the accounts whose value is included there.
> 
> Why is this?  I assume there is some Deep Accounting Philosophy
> behind this, but since for my purposes the "Equity" account feels like
> funny money, I don't understand why its value is being included along
> with my bank balances, house, and mortgage.

The balance sheet in 1.4.x doesn't work quite right. This will be fixed
in the next version.

dave