A lot of what is said here is true and most is obvious. However, what good is it if you can’t propose overarching objectives and actions? Who cares if all is lost? Hopefully, at least, the self-appointed diagnosticians such as yourself.
What Americans don’t know is that there are successful models. Germany is the best one. Yes, it operates a mercantilist economy, the objective of which is to assure all its citizens a good and reasonably secure life: free education, hybrid public/private medical care, vacation and medical time-off written into federal statute, etc. And, most all, a market champion: world-dominating manufacturing in every thing from steel, cars, factory automation to world-beating chemical and pharmaceutical industries and the most unionized country on earth.
Just saying.