Lots of people out there being like "kill the equity, save the workers, it'll be so easy!"

That's not how it works guys.

First, as they fight to survive they'll fire lots of employees and cut wages to reduce costs. GM cut 34K jobs in 2008, long before their bailout.

Then when they get their bailout they'll restructure. And by "restructure, I mean they'll fire even more people. Just like GM did in 2009. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/business/11auto.html

How does all of this work out for the employees? They get gutted. Many will lose their pensions. They'll lose the equity they had in the firm. They'll lose SIXTY SEVEN PERCENT of their annual earnings over 7 years.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2276753

It's a nice narrative - kill the equity, save the workers. But a bailout that goes to workers IS A BAILOUT of the equity as it simply offsets the firm's liabilities.

There's no separating the two. You can't kill the firm and not hurt the workers. That's just not how it works.

Disclosure - I have no stake in airlines. My firm is mostly a bond management firm. I get HURT by equity bailouts.

But people are massively downplaying the amount of painful everyday people will experience if we just "burn it down".