[tiahura]

“It sounds like they stretched their own finances to the limit. The government was trying to solve a much larger problem that required indifference to the risks they took”

Your second point sort of invalidates the first. You argue that the government isn’t the source of the harm, then justify the government action as a prudent balancing of harms.

I think the point most are making is that they were trying to solve a much larger problem, but didn’t think the problem through particularly well.

[arrosenberg]

> Your second point sort of invalidates the first. You argue that the government isn’t the source of the harm, then justify the government action as a prudent balancing of harms.

No it doesn't. The pandemic caused the harm, the government acted to mitigate the worst effects of it. You seem to be of the opinion that the "worst effects" are the landlords losing out on rent, but the worst effects are millions of people ending up homeless during a pandemic, which is what the government prevented. Even if it was clumsy, I tend to think landlords would have been worse off anyways if there had been mass homelessness and higher body counts. You can't collect rent if your renters are dead or your own head is in a basket.