Slower but stonger, What do they mean?

Kathleen Madigan makes a good point in this WSJ article:

After Friday’s reports on retail sales and inventories, real gross domestic product looks on track to grow between 2.0% and 2.5% this quarter. That is quite a few notches down from the 5.9% rate posted in the fourth quarter, but the mix suggests a much stronger economy.

Demand is now leading the way, instead of inventories. And even modestly rising demand creates a more sustainable recovery because increased spending starts the virtuous cycle of more orders, production and hiring, leading to more spending.

After the crash, the consumer channel was out of sorts, it had just discovered something had changed. The inventory adjustment was a rapid equalization of the channel after new information is revealed. Subsequently, the channel is operating normally, but total pass through is lower.

This should be evidence that the output gap is smaller than thought, we are going to operate with a lower but more balance output for some time. We should have a change in the expected output gap, revised lower.