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Nobody is incentivized to share bad news about the economy. Everyone has a vested interest in the stock market rising, in keeping their jobs, and a shared desire to see things go up forever.

This is why there needs to be some kind of safety net so that the economy is not a proxy for life and death. In the USA, if you run out of money, you are in real trouble. We need to decouple success/failure in the market from personal safety. You should be able to try opening a hot dog stand, have it tank, and still be able to eat and go to the doctor.



>Nobody is incentivized to share bad news about the economy.

Isn't the media incentivized to keep you watching or reading? The common criticism of media is they like to exaggerate a minor issue to get you to click on a headline.


except when it affects the economy thus their investment (be it 401k or something else)


They might be short sellers, or they might be foreign and view the US as an economic rival. There may be more incentives than just more clicks for the media.


Yet, for the last few years the media has been poopooing and economy that's by pretty much all measures was very strong.


A more likely explanation is that outside of a few specialized publications, most members of the media are just as financially and economically illiterate as the average person. I mean how many finance and economics courses do you have to pass to get a degree in journalism or communications? There's no deep media conspiracy here.




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