Just a random thought but a very true one, I was observing one of my colleagues the other day speaking bad about a friend of him who is trying to establish himself as an entrepreneur realizing a very good, but also somewhat risky idea.
Similar behavior towards people that strive to achieve more than doing their day to day job is happening at least below the surface and you see it coming especially from people that have a low self esteem or a low level of education.
My theory, that is probably confirmed somewhere by research is that economic downturns are accentuated by those people as they feel less security and rather prefer to shoot at others than to focus on their own issues.
Also I have seen a certain kind of mechanism that especially somehow frustrated people that strive for power apply: reflecting their own issues onto others, meaning that, if they do some thing prohibited or if they are running some risk, they tend to blame others in order to deviate the attention.
Especially in times of economic uncertainty, this spills over to others and increases the latitude of economic circles (at least makes down terms more pronounced.)