Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders give the impression that the U.S. economy is a disaster.
Trump says the American Dream is dead and the country is no longer great. Sanders believes the economy is rigged and the middle class is "collapsing."
Some argue that all of this doom and gloom is dragging down the economy, making people feel worse off than they really are.
"As a result of this negative drumbeat, many Americans now believe that their children will not live as well as they themselves do. That view is dead wrong," Warren Buffett warned Saturday in his annual letter.
The reality is the U.S. is growing at a decent clip, hiring is strong and unemployment is back under 5% -- a level considered full employment -- for the first time since early 2008.
The concern is that all the verbal beating up of America's economy will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. People will believe the U.S. is in poor shape and curb their spending, causing the economy to falter (about 70% of the U.S. economy is built on consumption).
"When I was John McCain's advisor [in 2008], my deep belief was if you're running for president, you should act like a president and never talk down the economy," says economist Doug Holtz-Eakin, who is now president of the America Action Forum.
So the evidence does not appear to back up that Trump and Sanders (among others) are hurting the economy, according to many of the experts.
However, beyond consumer sentiment, investors and business owners also dislike uncertainty. Trump and Sanders are serving up a lot of it. Trump talks about starting a trade war with China and Mexico, while Sanders wants to break up big banks and impose many new taxes.
It's highly unlikely any of these initiatives would make it through the Republican Congress, but a President Trump or President Sanders could do a lot to impact trade policy or regulation from the White House alone.
Experts warn if candidates say it enough, people are going to believe that things are in terrible shape -- or could get worse.
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