system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
EI5: when i read "Economy sinks on fears of a global slowdown" who are this scared people? why they cant just be brave and not sink the economy?

Would there be any difference if they were not scared?
gpt
Imagine you and all your friends are a baseball card collectors.  You like to trade cards between each other and, occassionally, sell them for money to a card shop.  If you're a good collector and trader, you can make more money than you started off with.

One day, one of your friends hears a rumor that the card shop isn't doing too well and may not pay as much for your cards any more.  In fact, it may go out of business.  If you don't sell your cards before the shop closes, you won't be able to make any money.  (Imagine, for the moment, that you no longer really like baseball cards and are only in this for the money).

Now you have two options.  As your first option, you can run to the card store and try to sell what you've got.  Other people may be running over there as well, and they might be willing to sell their cards for less than you are.  To compete with the other people, you might have to lower your asking price and get even less money from the sale.

Your second option is not to believe the rumor.  You think that the card shop will continue operating.  In fact, you can try to convince all your friends to give the card shop a loan, to help it through these tough times.  If the card shop lives on, you can sell your cards later and might even end up making more money.

If you choose the first option and you're wrong, you don't lose much.  If the card shop keeps operating, you can go back and buy more cards at a later date.  You'll have lost some money, but you protected yourself against the rumor.  If you choose the second option and you're wrong, you lose a lot.  You're left holding cards that you can't sell.  And if you ended up giving the card shop a loan--and it still closed--you're out that money too.

So it's not necessarily a matter of being "brave."  It makes good sense for you to sell your cards early and at a lower price.  That way, you might make some money and you at least cut your losses.  The bad thing is, all of your friends are making this same decision too.  So everybody starts selling early and for cheap, which causes the card market to lose a lot of its value.