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What are you trying to say?

There were manufacturing industries srinking during the 1970s and 1980s, and these continued to shrink during the 1990s. Whatever manufacturing we gained was a result of launching new industries such as computers, the internet, and related peripherals. The problem today is that all of these sectors are shrinking, and there is no new manufacturing jobs on the horizon.

As for entrepreneurship, it is largely a dead end. 4 out of 5 new businesses fail dramatically, and the barriers to entry are set higher then ever. The ADA requirements, insurance, and the convoluted licensing process alone will burn most people. Just the health insurance cost, for a family of four, is almost as large as a morgage. If you think entrepreneurship is the way to go, you either haven't launched a new business in decades, or are fortunate enough to have access to very significant capital. Sure people are trying to start new businesses; What choice do they have? But, most of these are not going to make it.

No, I'm saying that if you gloomsters were right, there couldn't possibly be any jobs to "lose" today, because they were all gone in the Reagan years (when we "lost" them all to Japan) or in the 1990s when we "lost" them all to someone else. Yet our share of mfg. of GDP remains unchanged. Imagine that!

And, no, 4/5 of all new business starts do not, nor ever have, failed. The % is about 50, and always has been. But what is different today is that new starts are typically very small and stay that way to get out of regulations and taxes---they are called "micro businesses" and they are the fastest growing share of the U.S. business population (5 employees or less). Typically these employ a couple of family members or "consultants" who do not get health or taxes paid for them, but who can make pretty good money.

And they are a significant share of the jobs "lost" that actually haven't disappeared, but have transformed.