I believe it was Nassim Nicholas Taleb who said that debt has a tendency to "fragilize". If you pay as you go, there are issues, but you can a lot more easily

I believe it was Nassim Nicholas Taleb who said that debt has a tendency to "fragilize". If you pay as you go, there are issues, but you can a lot more easily reduce your expenses when you have a reduction in income. If you have debt, it is almost always either impossible or very difficult to reduce your expenses, because debt repayment is almost always requiring monthly payments. This is especially true if you're talking about a weaker debtor (e.g. individual, poor country) and a stronger creditor (bank, rich country). More debt, means less ability to modify your expenses quickly, which means less ability to respond to changes in your income. This is, in aggregate, a very bad thing.