Newbie fold equity question

[DMACM]

I have been posting here a while and I always thought I understood what fold equity was but now im starting to doubt this. It seems to me there are two ways in which you could have fold equity.

a. You have enough chips to put target opponent to a decision for all his chips or to a decision that will cripple him if he calls and loses.

b. You cannot cripple target opponents stack but you have enough chips that you can allow target opponent to fold without giving him great pot odds to call.

I often here in posts that "I pushed here because I was about to lose fold equity" which type of fold equity are they refering to A or B? I think I had always assumed that having fold equity meant having enough chips to NOT give an opponent great odds on a call so I would figure my fold equity based on how many X the bb I had, but lately I find that being able to threaten a stack is more indicative of whether a player will fold, at least at the 11 and 22. Since better players would call based on pot odds perhaps you would see a reversal at higher levels?

[Scuba Chuck]

[ QUOTE ]
often here in posts that "I pushed here because I was about to lose fold equity"

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's make an extreme example:

Blinds are 15/30. 4 players. You have more than 15x BBs. Here are the following stacks.

UTG 3000
Button (hero) 500
SB 3000
BB 3500

In this scenario, despite the puny blinds, your stack doesn't hold much weight. Now change the blinds to 50/100. Any allin moves will not give any player proper odds to call, but laggy calls are still likely. In otherwords, you don't have much folding equity. The weight of your stack doesn't carry much fear. It's like going to war with a swiss army knife.

[DMACM]

Ok thanks, so pot odds dont really have anything to do with it then?