Can the economy grow again without Chinese and U.S. debt?

These days, it is hard to know what's real and what's not. The U.S. reported 3.5% gross domestic product growth in the third quarter, during which time China says it grew at an 8.9% rate, according to Fortune. That all sounds great. But it doesn't take much digging to realize that both countries are using borrowed money that someone will have to pay back later to create the illusion of growth -- without creating much in the way of jobs.

This bothers me because the current financial crisis was caused by a debt bubble, and now we are trying to crawl out of its wreckage by creating an even bigger debt bubble. It has been said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. By that definition, if the world's economic policymakers think that borrowing more money will lead to bubble-free growth, they're insane.