How the economy could have been fixed:

Instead of borrowing 800 billion dollars from China, the government should have just printed the 800 it needed.

"You can't do that, dummy. There'll be way too much inflation."

Ok, so we pay China 1 billion dollars to keep our secret. We just tell everyone the money was a loan and go on our merry way. The dollar maintains its integrity while I lose mine, but at least I wouldn't be a billion dollars in debt to the commies.