Why are investor so bearish?

To preface this, my vision might be skewed as I live in Canada and the area I live in is currently booming (especially the car and food industry).

Every week a new business goes up around me, dealerships, garage, napa auto parts, swiftys, even a second napa business opening soon. Restaurant chains and fast food chains are piling up, the mall is always full, walmart & costco are ridiculously overfilled to a point you can barely walk around. Obviously it's a small % of all those businesses but I see no worries in a small city of 65,000.

But whenever I look at the market, read online or listen to people around it is filled with skepticism and very bearish sentiment. Not only from everyday people but from CEO's of American companies or hedge funds managers. Though I'm not too familiar with him I heard a gentlemen named peter schiff mention he was getting away from us dollar and had 50% of his wealth in Canadian gold stocks and only invested out of the dollar. A lot of hedge funds I keep an eye on seem very bearish, like mhonish pabrai investing in auto repair / auto parts companies and coal (I understand the coal move being more so geopolotical). Other managers like seth klarman, ray dalio, guy spier and other famed investors also hinted towards this same sentiment, though not as extreme.

I also listened closely to Jerome Powell today and I did not hear anything that seemed overly worrying, unless I missed something? And yet the first comments or videos I came across after were about stagflation, recession and a total economic collapse.

So is it really as bad as what people say ? Why is seemingly everyone so worried ? What am I missing ? If it really is as bad as what people say why is the auto industry or food in expansion mode at such a rapid rate?

Also if things really are that bad why are all these professional investors still in the market ? If someone has a clear conviction of a economic collapse of some sort, why not wait and buy companies for pennies on the dollar?