Compound Growth

The Vibesession: Why the Economy Feels Broken Even When It Isn't with Seth Buks

• Compound Growth • Season 2 • Episode 19

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0:00 | 57:45

There's a gap between what the data says and how people feel — and right now, that gap is enormous. Wheeler and Colin sit down with Seth Buks, a market strategist and thought leader who has spent nearly two decades translating complex financial ideas into clear, actionable guidance for advisors and their clients. The conversation covers a lot of ground: where the economy actually stands on growth, inflation, and interest rates; why real wage growth over the past five years tells a very different story than the one most people believe; and what behavioral finance reveals about the decisions investors make when fear and greed start running the show.

Seth breaks down the "vibesession" — the phenomenon where people feel economically terrible despite data pointing in the opposite direction — and explains the behavioral biases behind it, including recency bias, herding, and representativeness. The conversation shifts to AI and what the productivity data actually shows, why the bakery analogy matters for understanding GDP, and how to separate what's real from what's noise when every headline feels urgent.

They also get into the mechanics of why markets compress: the investor psychology cycle, the buy-the-dip conditioning of the past decade, and what's been missing from recent market downturns that makes this moment harder to read. And in a candid conversation about private credit, the three explore how an investment product can start well-intentioned and quietly become something clients don't fully understand they've bought into — and what advisors owe clients when complexity steps in.

The episode closes with one of the better pieces of career advice the show has heard: the asset that compounds most reliably isn't a portfolio. It's the relationships you keep.

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Credits:
Created By: Wheeler Crowley and Colin Walker
Production, Editing and Post-Production: Tori Rothwell