The investors own their money and the state does not. Investors are free to invest or not. If the state distorts information on potential returns of various investments, many of those investments will not be made and society (the market) suffers accordingly.

You pay your money and you takes your chance. Or not.

I imagine roughly a year from now, we can look forward to Charles posting a poorly edited screed blaming a lack of lack of liquidity within the residential mortgage market on some half-assed theory, rather than the issues discussed in the referenced FT article.

Why are builders still building during the COVID-19 pandemic when so many are broke and can't afford housing or commercial business space?
@1: For once I agree with you, Swifty. Property owners investing in real estate and building are taking their chances. My parents owned several properties and did very well when they were still alive. But that was then---this is now.

I get what you're saying about the ridiculous "invisible hand" and its implications for deregulating ourselves into ruin. But I don't think this really has much to do with that. This is about a lack of risk transparency for investors. To provide a loan requires some gauge to understand the likelihood of getting a return on investment. They give money to people and need some way to know if they will get their money back (plus interest, which of course varies depending on the same information). The current situation makes this harder. But my reading is they view it as an obstacle to good investment practices, not that they are saying the relief packages were a mistake because of it.