When you borrow money, you are borrowing from an assumed productive future. For example, if you borrow $24,000 for a car, to be paid back in 6 years, you are predicting that you will make enough money back over the next 6 years to pay it back. If you do, great. However, if you don’t, you will lose the car, everything you have paid into the car, and you will have nothing. This is the nature of debt.
However, when you borrow money from your future, you are making a deliberate decision to reduce your future prosperity for a more prosperous present. This is not necessarily a bad thing, because by borrowing money now, you may be creating a more prosperous future, because having that car now allows you to take advantage of opportunities that you might not have if you didn’t have a vehicle to drive. However, it is not wise to borrow from your future to pay for things that do not contribute to your future prosperity, like vacations, video games, or fancy clothing, because if you do not have the money to pay these things back, then you must resort to outright theft by declaring bankruptcy and rob the people who loaned you money.
This is basically what Europe has done to itself. It didn’t just borrow money to create a productive future for itself. It also borrowed money on non-productive things like healthcare, pensions, and welfare based on the gamble that it had a future prosperity and could afford it all. Unfortunately, it’s prosperity has been less than it hoped and the debt it borrowed has grown.
The only ways out is to either cut its non-productive spending: education, healthcare, welfare, and pensions, until,the books are glanced or resort to outright theft to those that bought Europe’s bonds based on the promise that Europe would eventually buy those bonds back.
And united to cut off Adam Smith's invisible hand.