A few months down the line literally all of the economic issues will be better off as quarantines are lightened, as things reopen and new businesses are created to replace the old. The actual issue is going to be what society does with our national debt one day including the 3T we assumed as part of our stimulus for this one pandemic. This is not a "few months away" problem but a few decades away problem.
That's manifestly untrue. Aggregate measures of debt are at an all time high, measuring across government, households and non-financials [1]. Household savings have gone up but that has to be placed in the context of massive state intervention. Essentially you're not only taking money from one hand and giving to the other but a massive mortgage has been taken out too, to come due on future generations at the expense of future GDP.
[1]: https://www.fitchratings.com/research/sovereigns/us-non-fina...
> Consumers are in the best shape they’ve been in, ever.
> A huge portion of consumers think that’s bogus because they’re in the worst shape they’ve been in, ever.
> Both are true.
They're not. Workers, whether they've materially done well through the pandemic, or not, are sufficiently lucid to see that this all has to be paid for. And they're the ones who will pay for it.
Unlike the author, who is blindsighted by, and even marvels at, the "huge" numbers, unable to see more than a few months down the line.
A worker may be in a house that's booming in value with a tech salary and buying lots of nice things from Amazon and deliveroo but he can see the world outside.
Workers aren't atoms spread apart in a vacuum. They know people friends and family who aren't doing as well as themselves, or vice versa.
So there is no contradiction in terms. Things are bad full stop.