Generals fight the last war and so do regulators, but there are instances when measures taken to shore up after one crisis work well in the next. Following the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008 capital reserve requirements for banks became more stringent and when Covid hit the Basel III protocol was a reasonably effective Maginot Line.
Colossal intervention by central banks and governments is why the financial system didn’t melt down in 2020, but better capitalised banks and circumspect risk management helped ensure the patient was in good state to respond to the medicine. Prudency in lending and corporate finance culture has also played a role in the health of bond markets, at least in terms of borrowers’ solvency.
Anecdotally, fixed income professionals like Walter Kilcullen at Western Asset (which manages $491bn) rate the stock of debt as some of the “best quality [I’ve seen] in my career”. But now the dynamics of the corporate bond market are looking tricky.