"Debt relief"- Never good for the debtholder

If the Treasury will issue the debt, the Fed will currently buy it. There is little separation between the fiscal and monetary management. The same may also apply to other major central banks. For corporate debt, the Fed is buying hundreds of millions of ETFs and have support programs for investment grade, high yield, municipal debt, and commercial paper. Investment grade BBB spreads are now below the 2016 spike as measured by the BAML index. 

Bond life is good, yet past run-ups in debt have ultimately ended in significant debt relief. The debt relief is for the issuer and not the buyer. The flood of debt from fiscal deficits will have to be addressed and the only way to solve deficit excesses is through inflation or a restructuring.

Older research from Carmen Reinhart, Christoph Trebesch, "Sovereign-debt relief and its aftermath: The 1930s, the 1990s, the future?" tells a sobering tale of how past debt excesses have ended in "debt relief", the kind words for default. 

It may not have led to debt gridlock or a failure to have capital flow to debtor countries, but it resulted in a substantial cost to debt holders. In the case of WWI debt, it took 16 years and the Great Depression to have the debt shock, but it did occur. The debt crises of the 80's, 90's, and '08 resulted in a swifter debtor adjustment, so creditors may not have a decade to get their financial affairs in order.

Monetization and excess savings combined to eliminate a debt crisis, but timing may not always be aligned. The Fed may change their buying programs and a recovery will change the supply of credit. The equilibrium rate of interest and spread risk premia needed to clear markets is a war between extremes, a pull to negative rates by central banks and the pull to be paid a premium for an uncertain payment of principal and interest in the future.