The economic downturn will have lasting effects on people’s attitudes and behavior, a visiting economist told Bay Area business leaders Friday.

“People are going to think differently,” said John Mitchell, former chief economist for U.S. Bank. “A generation of loan officers are going to think differently. It’s a different world.”

Mitchell spoke at the Bay Area Chamber of Commerce’s 16th-annual economic outlook forum. He predicted the U.S. gross national product would dip between 0.5 percent and 1.5 percent in the coming year. In 2008, though the nation officially was in a recession, GDP grew between 1 percent and 1.5 percent.

He said inflation rates, which were between 4 percent and 4.5 percent in 2008, would most likely be in the 1 percent to 2 percent range.

“I’ve seen some zero percent forecasts,” he said.

Though Mitchell has worked in the financial industry for 38 years, he said he can’t predict the coming year with confidence. The economy is in uncharted territory, questions will have to be answered regarding the effectiveness of stimulus packages, and he worries about the enormous problems Barack Obama is facing.

“All the major categories of wealth have been declining,” he said.

Yet he reminded his audience that the current downturn is America’s 33rd recession. The previous 32 all ended eventually.

The housing crisis was the root of No. 33, he said.

“A falling house price is a weapon of mass destruction,” Mitchell said. “It starts with the house and then suddenly spreads through the entire economy.”

Mitchell poked fun at bankers’ former practice of loose lending.

“You got a pulse, you got a mortgage,” he said. The housing crisis changed that attitude decisively, he said.

He said Oregon third-quarter home prices were down 2.65 percent from last year. Among U.S. states, only the Dakotas, Alabama and Texas have seen rising home prices.

But Guy Tauer, a regional economist with the Oregon Employment Department, had some encouraging information to offer. As the nation scrambles to maintain what’s left of a shattered economy, Coos County’s economy has been scratched but not broken, he said.

In October, Coos County’s pending home sales were down 27.5 percent from the previous October, closings were down 25.7 percent, and new listings were down 17.9 percent. Last year, 25 single-family residential building permits were issued  in North Bend, and this year there have been none, Tauer said.

But he said the county has endured tougher times than these.

“It’s not like the 1960s, with the lumber losses,” Tauer said.

The county’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 9.6 percent in October, compared with 7.3 percent statewide. Tauer pointed out that the county’s unemployment rate was higher in 1991 and 1998, at 12.1 percent and 11.5 percent.

The difference today is that not many timber industry jobs are left to be lost, he said. Even so, between October 2007 and October 2008, 180 jobs were lost in professional and business services, and 80 in Indian tribal government. But 50 jobs were added in the educational and health services sector.

An Oregon Employment Department employer survey of 343 county businesses over the summer showed most employers hanging in there, he said.

“Most employers are not expecting huge changes in staffing levels,” Tauer said.

One of the employers’ biggest complaints was the lack of skilled workers in the county, he said. Many employers planned to solve this problem by outsourcing jobs or moving their companies out of the area.

Tauer encouraged employers to have their employees get training in-house or locally, such as by enrolling them in Southwestern Oregon Community College vocational programs.