Your understanding of incentives is backwards. Politician's stock portfolios aren't fixed in stone. They can sell their Oil & Gas and then short it, or more imp

Your understanding of incentives is backwards. Politician's stock portfolios aren't fixed in stone. They can sell their Oil & Gas and then short it, or more importantly invest in whatever single company they would steer the commercialization of a new power source to. Defense stocks go up, not down, when people discover there is a new threat we need to arm ourselves against with newer weapons because the old ones were inadequate. And major religious organizations wouldn't suffer at all if aliens exist - I know of no major religion that denies the existence of alien life. Meanwhile, during turmoil, more people turn to religion.