>There is definitely an unsound premise here - the market hasn't marked down public companies as if they are generally unsound...yet. All the "crash" so far has done is take us back to the levels of 3-4 years ago.

Yes, because maybe it hasn't accepted the gravity of what's going to happen to their ability to deliver value, or anticipates free money.

>Your point about buying bonds not changing "fundamental soundness" is like saying keeping someone from dying of an acute condition doesn't cure their illness. It still keeps them from dying right now! What is the advantage of causing a preventable catastrophe, just because everything eventually ends?

My point was that if they're not actually sound, then buying the bonds doesn't change that; it's just doing that weekend-at-bernie's thing. To the extent that the business can't deliver value, markets depend on such businesses shutting down, and subsidizing their bonds only delays.

Now, you'd be right that, if there's something fixable about them with collective action, then we should do that thing. But that would still obviate the need to subsidize their bonds, because it would revitalize market interest in them!

If someone has an acute problem with low blood sugar, do you let them die right now because increasing their blood sugar won't cure diabetes? This is how insane people sound to me right now.

And from what I've read, this is how the great depression was created - people said "oh, the banks that are failing are weak, so they should fail".

Except the patient we're trying to save is the market, not any one business, and malignant businesses are like cancer. It's important for the cancer to die so the patient can live.

I mean, if you want to debate this thing entirely in analogies.

I think the average person, or at least the average internet commenter, is too ready to consider large sectors of the economy "malignant" even in the best of times.

But without debating which analogy is right, it does matter whether it's cancer or not. And if aggressive treatment of advanced cancer involves cutting out major organs and the patient will only survive a month longer at best, it makes more sense to assume it's not terminal cancer and act accordingly even if there's a chance.

If someone appears to have a seizure and/or falls down and passes out, it could be a stroke, they could have cancer that's metastasized everywhere, but you don't make that assumption when there are many easily treatable possibilities.