The overspending always must come to an end when for every additional monetary unit in debt you get very low improvement in the economy but you in debt the future. You are living from your children income.
What usually comes after that is destruction of capital, either by war(you loose all what you have) or inflation, deflation or both simultaneusly(terrible deflation in some things,terrible inflation in others).
You can make the general population pay for it(raising inflation higher than incomes), or you can make the owners of capital pay for it(haircut of 30% or so of their worth).
Of course the owners of capital, like the owners of the NewYorkTimes do not want to pay for it. So they will try to influence the population to do what is best for them basically with propaganda.
In the past it was basically States and Church the only capable institutions for using propaganda. Right now there are also private institutions who control what people feel and think through PR, ownership of media, think tanks and Universities.