Why does the finance forum attract so many doom mongers?

[simong800]

Random thought, but I can't help notice the amount of doom mongers that the finance sub forum (and to be fair other PH forums) attract.

Perennial doom mongers. You know the type - everything is bad, the economy is permanently in a state of near collapse, the stock market is constantly on the verge of dropping by 90%, utility bills are going to lead most of England being homeless and riots on the street, capitalism is dead, the end of the world is near etc etc etc.

I've never met anyone like this in real life, yet on the PH forums some people of this nature are repeatedly posting their negativity day in, day out for weeks/months/years.

Curious as to why - any theories?

[av185]

The usual doomongers are similarly infecting the used car price threads too. :

[Joscal]

I blame social media algorithms. Think it’s called doom scrolling? Once you go down that route you’re bombarded.

[nickfrog]

A classic coping mechanism. If you're doing badly and are bitter then wishing everyone to be worse off might close the gap a little.

[bitchstewie]

I imagine there's a reasonable correlation between the doom mongers and people who are constantly hopping in and out of investments trying to second guess and time everything rather than just having a plan and sticking to it and trying to relax a bit.

[DaveCWK]

Doesn't it just go with the territory? I mean look at ZeroHedge

[BorkBorkBork]

I think it should be obvious from the economy, I think the economic term is fked.
.

[Deep Thought]

BorkBorkBork said:

I think it should be obvious from the economy, I think the economic term is fked.
.

To the extent of - verything is bad, the economy is permanently in a state of near collapse, the stock market is constantly on the verge of dropping by 90%, utility bills are going to lead most of England being homeless and riots on the street, capitalism is dead, the end of the world is near?

[BorkBorkBork]

Deep Thought said:

BorkBorkBork said:

I think it should be obvious from the economy, I think the economic term is fked.
.

To the extent of - verything is bad, the economy is permanently in a state of near collapse, the stock market is constantly on the verge of dropping by 90%, utility bills are going to lead most of England being homeless and riots on the street, capitalism is dead, the end of the world is near?

No, to the extent inflation is the highest it’s been in decades, war is raging just up the road, we’ve just been through the first global pandemic in a century and we’ve printed vastly more money in the last ten years than we should have done. Other than that, everything is bob on.

[bitchstewie]

Deep Thought said:

To the extent of - verything is bad, the economy is permanently in a state of near collapse, the stock market is constantly on the verge of dropping by 90%, utility bills are going to lead most of England being homeless and riots on the street, capitalism is dead, the end of the world is near?

A little exercise I find interesting is pick a point on a stock market graph and look around the same time for people telling you the end is nigh.

Now look at what happened on the graph to the right of that point.

Assuming some sensible assumptions like you didn't have all your money invested in Japanese stocks in the early 90's and never added any more etc.

[Muzzer79]

BorkBorkBork said:

Deep Thought said:

BorkBorkBork said:

I think it should be obvious from the economy, I think the economic term is fked.
.

To the extent of - verything is bad, the economy is permanently in a state of near collapse, the stock market is constantly on the verge of dropping by 90%, utility bills are going to lead most of England being homeless and riots on the street, capitalism is dead, the end of the world is near?

No, to the extent inflation is the highest it’s been in decades, war is raging just up the road, we’ve just been through the first global pandemic in a century and we’ve printed vastly more money in the last ten years than we should have done. Other than that, everything is bob on.

But is it any different to other crises we've been in?

Nobody is saying that everything is rosy, but a lot of people seem to predict economic armageddon when, in reality, it's a recession that we go through before things pick up again.

[BorkBorkBork]

Muzzer79 said:

BorkBorkBork said:

Deep Thought said:

BorkBorkBork said:

I think it should be obvious from the economy, I think the economic term is fked.
.

To the extent of - verything is bad, the economy is permanently in a state of near collapse, the stock market is constantly on the verge of dropping by 90%, utility bills are going to lead most of England being homeless and riots on the street, capitalism is dead, the end of the world is near?

No, to the extent inflation is the highest it’s been in decades, war is raging just up the road, we’ve just been through the first global pandemic in a century and we’ve printed vastly more money in the last ten years than we should have done. Other than that, everything is bob on.

But is it any different to other crises we've been in?

Nobody is saying that everything is rosy, but a lot of people seem to predict economic armageddon when, in reality, it's a recession that we go through before things pick up again.

Yes, the last couple of crises we printed our way out of them. That option isn’t available this time. So, this is new territory for most of us. And all this historical data is largely useless. We probably have to go back to the 70’s for something even remotely comparable.

[Muzzer79]

BorkBorkBork said:

Muzzer79 said:

BorkBorkBork said:

Deep Thought said:

BorkBorkBork said:

I think it should be obvious from the economy, I think the economic term is fked.
.

To the extent of - verything is bad, the economy is permanently in a state of near collapse, the stock market is constantly on the verge of dropping by 90%, utility bills are going to lead most of England being homeless and riots on the street, capitalism is dead, the end of the world is near?

No, to the extent inflation is the highest it’s been in decades, war is raging just up the road, we’ve just been through the first global pandemic in a century and we’ve printed vastly more money in the last ten years than we should have done. Other than that, everything is bob on.

But is it any different to other crises we've been in?

Nobody is saying that everything is rosy, but a lot of people seem to predict economic armageddon when, in reality, it's a recession that we go through before things pick up again.

Yes, the last couple of crises we printed our way out of them. That option isn’t available this time. So, this is new territory for most of us. And all this historical data is largely useless. We probably have to go back to the 70’s for something even remotely comparable.

OK.....so if we went back to the 70s, there us something remotely comparable so it isn't different to other crises?

The point isn't whether this is unprecedented. The point is whether this is end-of-the-financial-world level.

It most likely isn't, but some on here would have you believe that we'll all be driving around on the back of Toyota Hiluxes, carrying AK-47s, with neckties tied around our heads like Rambo.

[BorkBorkBork]

Muzzer79 said:

BorkBorkBork said:

Muzzer79 said:

BorkBorkBork said:

Deep Thought said:

BorkBorkBork said:

I think it should be obvious from the economy, I think the economic term is fked.
.

To the extent of - verything is bad, the economy is permanently in a state of near collapse, the stock market is constantly on the verge of dropping by 90%, utility bills are going to lead most of England being homeless and riots on the street, capitalism is dead, the end of the world is near?

No, to the extent inflation is the highest it’s been in decades, war is raging just up the road, we’ve just been through the first global pandemic in a century and we’ve printed vastly more money in the last ten years than we should have done. Other than that, everything is bob on.

But is it any different to other crises we've been in?

Nobody is saying that everything is rosy, but a lot of people seem to predict economic armageddon when, in reality, it's a recession that we go through before things pick up again.

Yes, the last couple of crises we printed our way out of them. That option isn’t available this time. So, this is new territory for most of us. And all this historical data is largely useless. We probably have to go back to the 70’s for something even remotely comparable.

OK.....so if we went back to the 70s, there us something remotely comparable so it isn't different to other crises?

The point isn't whether this is unprecedented. The point is whether this is end-of-the-financial-world level.

It most likely isn't, but some on here would have you believe that we'll all be driving around on the back of Toyota Hiluxes, carrying AK-47s, with neckties tied around our heads like Rambo.

Who says it’s end of the world? It’s hopefully the end of the cheap money and a return to proper capital allocation, rather than asset prices being massively inflated.

[Scootersp]

nickfrog said:

A classic coping mechanism. If you're doing badly and are bitter then wishing everyone to be worse off might close the gap a little.

That's a throw away comment, plenty of very wealthy people have a doom monger outlook? You can have the outlook and not actually want it to happen. If you go digging for information on how the global financial system works and where we and other countries fit in and how we might be ranked on the sliding scale of economic health you can perhaps make a (probably flawed and biased) personal assessment.

If you don't go digging (and even if you do) it's largely down to your natural optimism/pessimism which way you think and the extremes of both aren't generally helpful, although optimistic is better on balance (in life in general) and things are fine/good in general for far far longer than they are bad. You can be pessimistic about economic conditions but still optimistic about life, and I'd argue if things do go south it's often the optimistic that struggle with it the most. I'd call some pessimism as coming under the planning for the worst and hoping for the best mantra?

No one wants economic bad times, no one in history from a politician to the humble man on the street, but they historically have come, time and time again and so they are never planned. We seemingly cannot ever maintain a system that just works, a combination of factors means we ALWAYS end up with a crisis or two. Greed/irresponsibility/self interest/power etc ensures we push our luck and eventually something breaks down and the downsides are always shorter, sharper and more painful?

Sometimes these can be over a longer timeline than a individuals lifetime, so pessimism might not be warranted for a whole generation but might be absolutely spot on for the next?

Currently in living memory we've not had anything too bad (late 70's early 80's the worst?) the pessimist might say that with ever bigger populations, more debt, more globalism/interdependency that there is a risk any problem now (like the 2008 financial crisis would have been) will be bigger than in living memory.

[Panamax]

si800 said:

Random thought, but I can't help notice the amount of doom mongers that the finance sub forum (and to be fair other PH forums) attract.

It's all a question of who you choose to listen to. My preference is to listen to people who are actively participating in the markets as investors as opposed to pundits who talk a good game but have never kicked the ball!

[nickfrog]

Scootersp said:

nickfrog said:

A classic coping mechanism. If you're doing badly and are bitter then wishing everyone to be worse off might close the gap a little.

That's a throw away comment, plenty of very wealthy people have a doom monger outlook? You can have the outlook and not actually want it to happen.

I can't remember saying otherwise.

[Fusion777]

There will always be doom mongers and always those who are unaffected by events. Recessions always happen cyclically- no-one has yet figured out a way to prevent them happening. Just worth being aware that boom times don't last, but neither do bust times.

[Deep Thought]

BorkBorkBork said:

Deep Thought said:

BorkBorkBork said:

I think it should be obvious from the economy, I think the economic term is fked.
.

To the extent of - verything is bad, the economy is permanently in a state of near collapse, the stock market is constantly on the verge of dropping by 90%, utility bills are going to lead most of England being homeless and riots on the street, capitalism is dead, the end of the world is near?

No, to the extent inflation is the highest it’s been in decades, war is raging just up the road, we’ve just been through the first global pandemic in a century and we’ve printed vastly more money in the last ten years than we should have done. Other than that, everything is bob on.

Noone is denying any of that is happening, however there are some who believe the outcome of that will be apocalyptic.

Thats whats being discussed, not the fact that anyone is denying those events have happened.

Edited by Deep Thought on Tuesday 20th September 18:39

[Deep Thought]

BorkBorkBork said:

Yes, the last couple of crises we printed our way out of them. That option isn’t available this time. So, this is new territory for most of us. And all this historical data is largely useless. We probably have to go back to the 70’s for something even remotely comparable.

Yet they've found £100-150 billion to cap energy prices, and have committed to spending billions supporting Ukraine.

Not just us its a bit st for, its a global issue.

We survived the 70s, i've no doubt we'll survive this.