For example, the 1991 Gulf War should have worried only the countries neighbouring Iraq and Kuwait. In Belgium, a continent away from the Gulf, people started hoarding basic food stuffs, like sugar, coffee and flour. It is clear that this underlying current of anxiety is often brought out and magnified by the media's bad news bias. On the socio-economic level, anxiety is apparent in the growing feeling of insecurity. Fear of aggression tends to increase more quickly than the actual crime rates.
Uncertainty makes people save money for later rather than invest it now.
A main cause seems to be the continuing threat of job loss. Although households in the Western countries have a much higher average income than twenty years ago, the turmoil in the labor market makes future earnings very unpredictable. This distrust is stirred up by the media's ever more extensive reporting of cases of corruption, abuse of power or professional misconduct. More reporting does not in general mean more cases, but more extensive information gathering, and perhaps more emphasis on sensational aspects because of competition between publishers. Thus, people get a positive vision of the future , and a system of ethics and values that can give meaning to their life.