I suppose it's the matter of media exposure: unlike economists and meteorologists, seismologists aren't constantly on TV telling us bad times are coming soon.
If the meteorologist says it will rain on Saturday and be sunny on Sunday, and in fact they happen in the opposite order, my weekend plans are ruined.
But the seismologist is just saying, "I don't know exactly when but it reeaaally looks like we're going to get a big earthquake someday soon better make sure your building is up to code and you have your emergency supplies ready". And we nod, and check our emergency supplies and upgrade our infrastructure, and when five more years go by without an earthquake, and the seismologist is saying the same thing, nobody says "silly seismologist, predicting twelve of the last three earthquakes!"
But when an economist says a crash might be coming soon, and you'd better make sure you have emergency savings set aside, people do make those jokes.
Maybe one difference is with the economy there is a lot more obvious benefit to be had for almost any person to expect (pretend?) there won't be a crash. For earthquakes, challenging the seismologists only benefits the niche group of real estate developers. While the cost of worrying about earthquakes is relatively little ostensibly.
I'd heard some argument that humans inherent tolerance for risk is much lower than it rationally should be today because it was evolved in an environment where we were much more likely to get killed. I think human discourse is constantly grappling with that biased instinct.
I suppose it's the matter of media exposure: unlike economists and meteorologists, seismologists aren't constantly on TV telling us bad times are coming soon.