had governments not bailed out unconditionally a big chunk of the economy many business sectors would have collapsed. This would have triggered a run on the financial system like no one in recorded history.

maybe we should have left "creative destruction" to play out. after all a pandemic is a known business risk.

I might be misunderstanding some sarcasm from someone, but isn't government intervention and support during a time of crisis pretty firmly in the neoliberal playbook?

From where I'm standing it's... pretty much everyone else who rails against large scale bailouts. The libertarian crowd is more on the "see where the chips fall" side of things while the more left-leaning/progressive groups didn't appreciate govt money going to businesses instead of to workers directly.

Only the biggest boats can weather the storm. Big boats don't need life preservers, but the little guys do.

But the bailing out hasn’t really changed anyone’s mind about capitalism. The fun part of capitalism in America is that people think individually they are owed stuff from the government but collectively should have no intervention.