So what happens if you lend me $1 million and I don't pay you back because my business goes belly-up in a month? Well. No actual wealth is destroyed if you don'

So what happens if you lend me $1 million and I don't pay you back because my business goes belly-up in a month? Well. No actual wealth is destroyed if you don't get paid back. Wealth is destroyed when you use the invested money to divert valuable resources into a non-productive enterprise. Energy is used to cool and light your office and run your computers. The useful lifetime of many computers is invested in the business. A running business consumes many, many resources, down to and including wear and tear on the carpet in your office. Not to mention that a lot of people's time and energy comes to naught... or at least to less than you paid for them, hence less than they should have come to.