In 2021 global debt, that is, the total amount borrowed by governments, businesses, and households, stood at an incomprehensible $303 trillion. Meanwhile, total global economic output amounted to $94 trillion, which means debt exceeds output by 322%.
This fails to distinguish between debt and credit. Banks don't loan "money", although the credit they offer spends just like money. Only the respective currency-issuing governments can supply the monetary assets needed to retire/extinguish the credit banks extend.
The fact that you lumped that currency creation with all other debt when it is nothing more than the net money supply denominated in the government's unit of account, says you don't understand any of it. Like the US or UK governments, banks do not need the money they can create at will. If they did, they could simply loan themselves whatever money they desired.
Their quest is to obtain the money created by their respective governments and that is exchanged for the credit/debt they create as the borrower pays down the principal of their note. Paying off a loan decreases the net money supply at the macro level, leaving accrued interest and fees as profit for the lender.
The thing is though there is nothing anyone can do about limits to growth because you can't change the laws that govern nature.
You have this correct, somewhat. An economy is always limited by the goods and services it can produce or import. In the absence of sufficient government-created currency to retire private sector debt, only constant growth can prevent collapse by "rolling over" private debt into new debt. This, however, creates volatility and fragility in the economy, subjecting it to the whims of the business cycle.
If governments don't understand their role in the economy as the monopoly "source" of net monetary assets that can retire private debt or be net saved they will most likely succumb to the temptation of acting like any other "currency user" and tighten their fiscal belts. This, when viewed in proper context, is exactly the opposite of what should be done and eventually leads to massive deficit spending to bail out lenders as well as propping up consumers and supply chains threatened with default.
This "bubble/bust" cycle is the result of governments reluctant to take fiscal responsibility for their economies and supply them with the needed monetary assets to enable a more steady-state economy not reliant on constant private sector growth.
