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Comment by meheleventyone | Hacker News Reader

If everything just starts up with rent due and evictions happening to a significant population you just have a second wave of recession and a collapse of the rental market. I’d assume most people, particularly landlords and local government would want to avoid that.

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> I’d assume most people, particularly landlords and local government would want to avoid that.

This seems like a “prisoner’s dilemma” situation. It’s rational for an individual landlord to evict a delinquent tenant and seek a new one. However, if everyone does this the entire market collapses. It’s better for everyone if the landlord takes a short term haircut to preserve the market.

Since cooperation is expected to break down between individuals, the government must step in to prevent collapse.

... or maybe this "landlord" is a parent who just rents out their old small house, and is now unable to make the rent or car payments

Then they do what everyone else does. Sell the asset and cut back on expenses.

Capital owners are not a special class of citizen. If you have assets and need cash, there is a way to convert one to the other. It's called a "market". You may have heard of it.

It seems that during recessions, asset-rich/cash-poor people, nominally Capitalists, turn into overnight socialists because making cuts to the ol' lifestyle is for the little people, not them.

How does that change things? I think small landlords are especially exposed to the dilemma because they have fewer resources at their disposal.

At least they have an asset they can use to survive and make those payments.

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