The challenge of what lies before us...

It's not totally appreciated that the United States desperately needs to re-industrialize even as it no longer has capital to do so. Most countries in history that have had to industrialize quickly (usually for the first time) also had to use labor in a brutal way, to compensate for a lack of capital. When you don't have money, you build your infrastructure in more labor intensive and less efficient ways. Also, bluntly, worker safety in these situations is usually badly compromised.

In the United States, the labor force is mostly in the process of retiring, and the young are fewer in number and not used to the idea of physical labor. Most of them want corporate jobs that won't be there much longer.

Put these two concepts together and you can see how intractable the future may become...