It works until you run out of other people’s money.
Actually, Argentina ran out of other people's money almost 15 years ago, and is trying desperately to run out of a new group of other peoples' money now, pretending they'll pay new investors what they would not pay the old investors.
What the folks in Argentina don't understand is that hedge funds and other types of so-called "speculators" have a role to play in risk mitigation that makes their borrowing possible.
What the folks at BI don't understand -- and have never understood -- is that Social Security is effectively the largest hedge fund in the world, and someday tens of millions of investors are going to be ruined. The US debt held by China is chicken feed compared to the debt held by Americans.