Otherwise viable businesses that miss payments on equipment, rents, operating loans, or whatever just because of this halt in activity. It almost seems like we need some sort of debt holiday for three months. No payments necessary and no accrued interest. We’ll just extend the maturity by three months for everything out there...mortgages, business loans, student loans, whatever. Give banks and finance companies zero percent loans for three months to carry this temporarily non-performing stuff. Theoretically, loan portfolios would have the same value in three months time as they did before this crisis if the maturities were extended.
Of course, that assumes we are back on our feet by mid June. Not sure that is a great assumption. I don’t see the exit strategy from social isolation. We really need a vaccine. Maybe the government should offer a $10bn x-prize for the first company that delivers 500mm working vaccines.