[smcl]

This is an incredibly blinkered viewpoint. Sure if you're insulated from the effects of economic downturns (you have a secure job or no dependents, and you have a lot of savings and a diverse investment portfolio, and you're healthy and/or have no need to worry about losing health insurance benefits) then sure, you can relax and tell yourself that everything will work out alright in the end.

However the reality is that recessions mean a lot of suffering and uncertainty for a sizeable chunk of the population. Pretending this isn't the case is extremely bizarre.

[gehwartzen]

I think it can be a fairly reasonable viewpoint; there are many systems where "downturn" type events are good for the system as a whole and also disproportionally good to some members. A natural forest fire is good for the forest from time to time, good for certain well established individual trees, and good for future generations but of course terrible for those trees that get culled out.

[oblio]

The issue with this is that there's a lot of "culling" happening during these recessions. And people aren't trees.

[umvi]

Right but we aren't incinerating people during the culling. Very few (if any) people actually die compared to trees in a forest fire.

[oblio]

During recessions there's higher rates of suicides, divorces, depressions.

People don't have to die for their lives to be miserable.

(And people on HN don't have to be so literal or pedantic, especially when analogies are used...)

[RickJWagner]

You're right.

I sometimes feel conflicted about bad economic news-- a lot of my reading materials suggest this is 'good', because it's an opportunity to buy distressed assets and make more money. Then I think about the cost to others, and I realize I'd rather not make the money and let others have an easier time of it.