Why so many democratic citizens feel qualified to intuit their way to an opinion is beyond me.

Systematic human irrationality?

Because I haven't studied economics beyond the Wikipedia level, and systems with large numbers of humans involved are really, really complicated.

If learning about economics is something worthwhile for you, then I recommend picking up a good macroeconomics textbook and working through it. A good 101 textbook will outline simple but useful models that can help us understand the economy. (This is like how statistical mechanics can help us understand thermodynamic systems without knowing information about each individual particle.)

Alternatively, there should be open online courses from MIT, Harvard, etc. if that is more your style.