I would call this "obvious in retrospect". Of course you can tell a little story on why it is obvious, but you can also tell a little story on why the opposite is obvious. The tricky part is figuring out which "obvious" thing will happen and which "obvious" think won't.

If there was no growth and bleak predictions of future growth, it would have been just as easy to rationalize.

> This sounds pretty technical but I think I can follow. If you put people out of jobs and out of their homes for 1+ year, they ain't going to come back to an utopian pre-pandemic world. What did you think, that all the lost human capital & institutional knowledge lost in destroyed jobs and bankrupt companies was going to be rebuild in a day?

If there was no growth and positive predictions of future growth, it would have been just as easy to rationalize.

> This sounds pretty technical but I think I can follow. It takes a little while for people and companies to adjust to the post-pandemic world - takes a while to ramp up production, takes a while to stop saving just in case and start spending again. If you let people out of their houses to buy stuff, might take a couple months to transition back to normal but it will happen eventually.

If there was high growth in the short and bleak predictions of future growth, it would have been just as easy to rationalize.

> This sounds pretty technical but I think I can follow. If you let people out of their houses to buy stuff, after they couldn't for a year, then the economy is going to show growth in the quarter you let them out. But after that quarter, not much will happen. Long term growth depends on HN engineers developing revolutionary new software and the pandemic hasn't changed that. Opening up will allow us to catch up but won't have sustained effect.

And so forth.