I couldn't carry my gaming PC with me as a Team Fortress 2 addicted kid, my Gameboy was too basic to keep me compulsively glued to its screen for 8 hours, it couldn't constantly send me notifications, it didn't have some hyperoptimized billion dollar algorithm meticulously designed to exploit human psychology.

There were friction and physical boundaries, now there aren't. That's a problem.

Just ask most primary school teachers how their students are doing.

Manufacturing? Energy is way too expensive.

Tech? Admirable attempts using relatively little financial resources to keep up with the US and China haven't worked out. An issue of scale, not talent.

The complex regulatory body and risk-averse politics slows everything down (except the process of creating new regulations)

Germany is a prime example of all of the above.

Oh, and let's also make our energy supplies dependent on an adversary after shutting down perfectly fine nuclear power plants while fantasizing about a green hydrogen future while operating coal plants into the 2040s. (Also Germany)