Economic Recovery?

 As soon as it gets light each day, I search for signs of land.

Every day, there is news of vaccines - technical, distant, abstract - and news of more and more deaths - also distant, and in many ways abstract.  Now we hear, in yesterday's Washington Post, that Operation Warp Speed is apparently on impulse power:  of the 300 million doses promised, less than one tenth will actually materialize anytime soon.  Grit teeth.  Trim sails.  Keep looking.

But the economic news - long term, at least - is different.  Although the only legislative body capable of providing economic relief to Americans has chosen not to, and the non-eviction orders of earlier this year run out in less than a month, and America has so far not added nearly enough jobs to make a big difference to Americans in distress, there is a growing consensus that once the vaccine is distributed widely enough, allowing businesses to open safely throughout the country, the economy will spring back to normal, or better than normal, as early as the second quarter of 2021.

Kevin Drum explains why the 2021 recovery will be stronger and faster than, for instance, the slow recovery* from the 2007-08 financial crisis:  demand.  When businesses re-open, there will be customers lining up around the block.  Personal savings have gone through the roof in 2020, since so many of us haven't had the opportunity to spend disposable income, and we don't have to buy gas if we're working from home.  Once everything opens up, it will be a seller's market.

Drum also notes that the TARP program, which was cobbled together by the outgoing Bush Administration, was diluted by a skeptical Congress.  It ended up providing a lot less stimulus than this spring's CARES Act, which had some significant simulative effect, and there's a good chance that something further will be done, if only after January 20, to provide more relief.

We'll see.  

 * - Of course, the major financial institutions bounced back pretty quickly, but the rest of us?  Not so much.