David Brooks, the rational voice of the NYT, articulates his version of "the party is over."

It is a near flawless concise history and analysis of where we are, how we got here, and our dilemma:

"Over the next many years, Americans will have to save more and borrow less. The American economy will have to transition from an economy based on consumption and imports to an economy with a greater balance of business investment and production. A country that has become accustomed to reasonably fast growth and frothy affluence will probably have to adjust to slower growth and less retail fizz."

"The economic challenges will be hard...But it’s the political challenges that will be most hellacious. Basically, everything that a politician might do to make voters happier in the near term will have horrible long-term consequences."

Amen. Read it all here.

However, there is one massive head-scratcher in the otherwise brilliant piece.

Brooks writes:

"The members of the Obama administration fully understand this and are brimming with good ideas about how to move from a bubble economy to an investment economy. Finding a political strategy to accomplish this, however, is proving to be very difficult. And getting Congress to move in this direction might be impossible."

Huh? Of course, true enough, getting Congress to face our perilous circumstances with integrity and courage is the impossible dream. But the sentence about the Obama administration's willingness to grapple with reality just drops down from outer space. It is so January 20th. I would love to know what gives Brooks hope, at this late date, that anyone affiliated with President Obama has any inclination toward making the politically inexpedient choices and speaking the cold hard truth to the American people (and, more importantly, the Democratic Party interest groups). From what I have seen so far, I expect the President to keep telling those constituencies exactly what they want to hear.