Since you seem to have a reasonable head on your shoulders, what happens to the living wage of John Doe when the company he works for goes under because the owner's billions are wiped out? Okay so John Doe gets double the stimulus check and can scramble to find another job. Oh but whoops no jobs available. Two months after the epidemic and John Doe is evicted. Oh, gonna slap "no eviction" requirements on landlords after the epidemic? Well when the landlord can't pay the electric bill or afford to do any maintenance then what? Require power companies to deliver electricity for free? Force home depot to give away products to the land lord that she needs to do maintenance on John's apartment? What about the maintenance worker for the apartment complex? Does he just work for free? People angry that air lines are being bailed out??? The hell? Do you want travel to just cease to exist for years?
I take exception with you denigrating the act of investing entirely as gambling. Is there risk? Of course there is. But there's risk in sitting pat on your 60 hour a week job making minimum wage too. You're investing your time with the hope that you'll continue to have that 60 hour a week job. Maybe you can afford to take a 20 hour a week hit, maybe you can't. Maybe investors can take a billion dollar hit, maybe they can't. I have many friends in the bar industry...owner, bar tenders, servers all levels. The owner invested a significant amount of money and time in his business, but it's a risk..a gamble that his business will make money. The bar tenders make great money on tips, more than minimum wage by far...but there's a risk with that too. Now none of them are making money...the owner isn't...the bar tenders aren't. Yet because the owner had money to invest too bad for him, let his business die?