This one popped into my head a few weeks ago…
A lot of things to do with money are zero sum, or near enough. If you want to spend more on one thing the money has to come from somewhere, and from someone, and that someone doesn't usually get asked. (Investing is the big exception, because there the pie actually grows, but that's for another day.)
If it's a small number of people each losing a lot, they notice straight away and they make a fuss, which is fair enough, I'd make a fuss too. If it's millions of people each losing a few quid, most of them don't notice at all. Or they notice and can't be bothered. Same result really.
So the loudest losses aren't always the biggest ones. I think we’d assume they were.
And it's the same with people's own money, just smaller.
A portfolio drops 30% over a couple of months and the phone goes. Of course it does, it's horrible and, 30+ years into doing this, they don't get any nicer, and it's on the news and everybody you know has a view.
Inflation at 3% a year does exactly the same damage, it just takes a bit longer doing it.
Nobody rings about that one. The statement just sits there with the same number on it, a bit more if there's been some interest, so there's nothing to ring about.
The odd bit, to me anyway, is that the loud one has historically tended to come back for the people who sat tight. Prices don't come back. I can't remember the weekly shop ever getting cheaper and staying cheaper.
So we spend the worry on the one that usually sorts itself out, and hardly any on the one that doesn't.
I don't think that makes anyone daft. A sudden fall frightens you in a way a slow one just doesn't, and I'm not sure how you'd change that, or whether you'd want to.
Probably the most we can do is keep mentioning it. Which I suppose is what this is.