And I'm aware of a bunch of companies that are explicitly not drawing on their available revolvers because the banks involved are not necessarily in a position to provide that liquidity right now... This is the issue with a systemic problem that affects the entire economy, which is quite different from a single company being affected. And note that even "cash on hand" would be in practice money markets or bank accounts, which would make drawing it down look a lot like a bank run.
Now whether we should be bailing companies out, that's a separate question.
Fundamentally, if 2020Q1/Q2 GDP is effectively down 30% or whatever the number is, and we want to "replace" that loss, it's hard to see where that sort of money can come from except "all of us" in various forms (higher taxes due to government bailouts, higher prices, higher inflation, etc, etc). The main question is where the incidence of the economic pain will fall. Letting companies go out of business places that incidence partially on the shareholders and partially on the ex-employees and partially on the ex-customers. Unemployment insurance and the like can partially help the employees in the short term. The shareholders seem to get little sympathy, understandably, though note that they include things like pension funds and whatnot. Customers (who can no longer get the goods the company used to provide) may be just out of luck or other companies might at some point spring up to address the demand. In the short term they are just out of luck.
It seems to me that a lot of economic readjustment will take place no matter what, with open questions about speed and smoothness.
Now whether we should be bailing companies out, that's a separate question.
Fundamentally, if 2020Q1/Q2 GDP is effectively down 30% or whatever the number is, and we want to "replace" that loss, it's hard to see where that sort of money can come from except "all of us" in various forms (higher taxes due to government bailouts, higher prices, higher inflation, etc, etc). The main question is where the incidence of the economic pain will fall. Letting companies go out of business places that incidence partially on the shareholders and partially on the ex-employees and partially on the ex-customers. Unemployment insurance and the like can partially help the employees in the short term. The shareholders seem to get little sympathy, understandably, though note that they include things like pension funds and whatnot. Customers (who can no longer get the goods the company used to provide) may be just out of luck or other companies might at some point spring up to address the demand. In the short term they are just out of luck.
It seems to me that a lot of economic readjustment will take place no matter what, with open questions about speed and smoothness.