We could be in for a long, slow decade. There’s a confluence of forces that are probably going to retard economic vitality.

David Brooks

David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns.

Consumers are still overindebted, and it will take years of curtailed spending before households are back on a sustainable path. Federal and state governments also will have to pull back. Labor markets were ill before the recession and are worse now.

Our trading partners in Europe and Japan are stagnant or in peril. Banks in this country are not lending to small businesses and banks elsewhere have huge write-downs to endure. The psychological war between business and the Obama administration also is...