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Comment by chickenpotpie | Hacker News Reader

Counterpoint, companies will learn not to overextend and we won't have to worry about job loss or bailouts the next time this happens

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Companies can't "learn not to overextend" for things this rare. If they spend a bunch of resources making sure they can weather sufficiently infrequent storms, they'll be out competed in the shorter term by companies that refuse to.

If we need companies to prepare for this kind of thing, we need to somehow test their readiness more frequently.

Companies should just plan on failing, and everyone moves on to the next thing. Not everything has to last for ever.

Yeah, my point was just that "make them hurt so they learn" doesn't really make sense here. There may be plenty of reasons to allow companies to fail, in particular instances or in general.

More frequently than every 10 years?

I don't recall multiple month suspension of broad categories of business in the last 20 years.

But yes, probably even more frequently than every 10 years - it's too easy to cut corners, so someone will, and the businesses behaving "correctly" need to compete against that.

That's if we want companies to be prepared for this.

Counterpoint. We will have less innovation and tech advancement if companies will have to spend more to prepare for disasters like this virus. If new businesses have to do that then we will have a lot tougher barrier entry meaning old fish will prevail.

But don't they already have to spend more to prepare in the form of taxes?

Then it is like insurance which makes more sense than requiring companies to hold certain amount of money in reserves.

I have happy with less innovation if it means people don't go homeless and starve every time the economy tanks

They've had generations to learn that, why do you think they will suddenly get clever now?

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