[candybar]

This doesn't work. Credit is an essential part of the modern economy and not everything can be shut down. For people to consume even the very basics, lots of intermediate transactions need to be made using credit and if you cease interest payments entirely, no one will lend and the system will freeze. Keep in in mind that no government actually has any authority to do this either, as credit markets are global. To unilaterally cease payments and order ceasing of payments is akin to (but actually worse) national default, which will completely disintegrate the financial markets globally. Even for ordinary people around the world to just survive, we still need international trade.

At a high level, credit and money are simply means to align incentives across a wide variety of actors and ensure cooperation. While theoretically it's not impossible to reorganize the economy as not to need it, it would effectively require a complete command economy and I don't think anyone would be able to do this effectively in the short term without completely destroying any semblance of the market economy in the long run.

The obvious play here is just to pay individuals (not businesses) enough money and access to healthcare in the medium term and to let businesses (that aren't obviously strategic to national interests, those can be considered separately) do what they need to do. There are already legal mechanisms in place for businesses to avoid paying creditors and landlords. This is a strange plea for a handout. If the market changed as to make their rent abnormally low relative to their profits, they wouldn't be paying extra rent.

For residential tenants, rent forgiveness at least makes some sense, though I think direct payments to individuals are fairer and avoid cascading effects. For businesses that during the good times keep all surpluses for themselves as profits, to argue for rent forgiveness during the hard times is comical.