Who could have known that using debt to purchase back stock for the purposes of artificially increasing company value without building value would cause a crisis?

It would be bad if they needed cash and couldn't borrow, but on the other hand borrowing just got cheaper.

What evidence is there that companies who previously bought stock and issued debt are low on cash?

I'll bite. How can you tell?

The entire world is about to have a supply chain disruption that you can't stoke into recovery using central bank policy. The Fed rarely lowers interest rates without notice. They're spooked.

> The Fed rarely lowers interest rates without notice.

Just to play devil's advocate, the world also rarely has an epidemic of this magnitude...

What if this supply chain disruption is short term, and the world returns to business as usual soon?

That is a possible scenario, but not what market participant behavior is predicting. So, you either believe governments, or you believe the flow of trillions of dollars through the capital markets. The truth likely lies somewhere in the middle, waiting to be discovered.

Then you drop rates only for the short term, and return the rates to their previous value soon.