Interest rates on things like CDs and low-risk bonds have been decent for a while now. It’s not been painful to sit on cash reserves provided you were smart about where the cash was parked.

It’s not an either/or, it’s just a question of who was participating in the boom while preparing for storms ahead vs those all in on the boom.

What implodes in the period ahead are things that are massively over leveraged and can’t absorb a hit without doubling down again with more funding/loans and such. These are the folks and companies that get wiped out.