[Goladus]

> The whole PPP process was a sham [...] it was designed up front to be a giveaway to business owners.

Yes. The goal was to put money into the economy to help absorb the shock caused by short-term COVID restrictions that would otherwise have caused businesses to fail permanently. The point was to allow more businesses to "weather the storm" than otherwise. You can argue about the extent to which businesses should invest in "pandemic insurance" (however you want to define that), but the government does have an interest in stability and preventing a vicious cycle leading to economic collapse.

The obvious point was to leverage the resources already available at banks to vet loan applicants and to reduce the total number of applicants in the first place. It's not perfect, but it's a reasonably good idea given the urgency. Sometimes it's reasonable to accept that some people are going to get away with cheating the system. Do the best you can and move on.

Can you imagine how much MORE it would have cost and how much more money would have gone to waste, had the government just said up-front that it was free money for businesses? How much would it have cost the government to arrange for approving applicant businesses? Was it even feasible given the desired timeline?