CUNA Lending Council Conference speaker says downturn could be on the horizon

“Recession” is a scary word but worries of an upcoming recession are not something that should keep people up at night.

“A recession is not necessarily the end of the world,” says Peter Ricchiuti, a finance speaker and professor at Tulane University, told CUNA Lending Council Conference attendees during a keynote address in Anaheim, CA.

While the 2008 recession is still fresh in people’s minds, they shouldn’t believe any future recession would be similar to that one, because that recession was a “whopper” that lasted 18 months. Ricchiuti, who gave a keynote address at the CUNA Lending Council Conference Monday morning in Anaheim, Calif., says that was more like a depression.

There are three stages of bear market, Ricchiuti says—denial, reality, and surrender. Currently, he says the population is in the reality stage, where stocks are declining and investors are beginning to realize how weak the economy is.

But while Ricchiuti says a recession is on the horizon in the near future, although he didn’t give any date when he expects the recession to hit, he says it’s not expected to be like the 2008 recession.

Ricchiuti give several examples of things that Americans should and shouldn’t worry about. Things that Americans shouldn’t worry about include:

The viability of Social Security and other entitlements. “We have a printing press. You’ll always get your money.”
Political polarization and upheaval. Ricchiuti says a pendulum exists when it comes to political polarization in the U.S. It always swings far to the left or right, but will eventually come back to the middle. Currently, it’s a period of swinging

But the list of things Americans should worry about includes:

The need to hire 50,000 truck drivers.
The need to hire 790,000 new pilots over the next 20 years, according to Boeing estimates.
Public pension funds, which Ricchiuti says are “woefully underfunded.”
Americans want to own less stuff. This is important, because the economy is 70 percent consumer driven. “This is a big, big change,” Ricchiuti says. “They want adventures, stories, and want to be mobile.”