The US is in no position to return to making stuff.

I suspect that current management might be better than when the US was economically dominant. Our dominance then was more despite than because of management. Needed financial reforms include corporate governance of publicly traded corporations as well as the roll back of the size of the financial sector to somewhere around a tenth of its current size.

The biggest problem the US and European economies face is distributional efficiency. This is only going to get worse as robotics increasingly diminishes the role of labor in manufacturing. The USA has all of the capital it needs to reform and revise the economy. The problem is that this capital is in the hands of an elite that expects a higher rate of return than is compatible with much of what most urgently needs doing - the Green New Deal. There are two obvious solutions: 1) tax the elites and do the needed spending from those taxes; 2) fund the spending directly by government spending out of newly created money; or some combination. I prefer 1 because it would also address the need for redistribution of wealth.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."