Analogy

Reading about the sup-prime mortgage bubble's boom and bust,,the reason the bubble could continue for the final few years was that the mortgage originators were relying on higher home prices allowing their borrowers to refinance their crazy all interest loans before the teaser rate stopped and they lost the ability to repay.

So:

Rising house prices allowed sub-prime borrowers to refinance their homes and stave off collapse. Once house prices became flat, fell, or even just grew at too slow a rate, the game was up for the sub prime borrower and they defaulted on their loan.

leads to this possible analogy of government deficit spending...

Growing economies and populations allowed governments to use deficit spending and to roll over government debts and ignore unfunded liabilities. Once the economy falls enough or population growth becomes too low, the game will be up for government deficit spending and using debt to pay out for unfunded liabilities.

This is what is happening in slow motion (unless economic growth surges soon.)

I am not talking about small deficits here or there or some debt to build a road, but deficit spending for bail outs, health care, a couple of expensive wars, etc. and more importantly, borrowing planned to pay for unfunded pensions and entitlements.

UPDATE:

"What Europe needs is a growth pact because without growth, public finances aren't going to be sustainable," Tilford said. "The bond markets are going to be forcing them to make those kind of changes."

Even EU president Van Rompuy warned that the bloc risks irrelevance and the end of its expensive welfare programs if it can't speed up economic growth, forecast to expand by just 1 percent this year.

"With 1 percent growth we can't finance our social model any more. With 1 percent structural growth we can't play a role in the world," he told the World Economic Forum in Brussels. "We need to double the economic growth potential that we now have."

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Trilliondollar-euro-rescue-apf-644989406.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=3&asset=&ccode=

How do you increase economic growth without changing any tax rates or cutting/adding any government expenditure?

They can't cut taxes because they already have a revenue problem. They can't raise taxes because that will not promote growth.

They can't cut because firing employees or reducing their salaries won't help a fragile economy, and they can't increase spending because that's the problem to begin with.

This explains these expressions....