I attended a City Club forum Wednesday where two economic experts said that Seattle should be able to brave the coming recession– er, downturn– better than most.

Judith Runstad, a lawyer with Foster Pepper and former chairman of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, said that’s because of the strength of our high-tech sector and our cutting-edge health care industry.

She said city and state management policies have also helped prevent the kind of overbuilding that has the glutted California real estate market, weighted down by foreclosures, in a constant nose-dive.

Kevin Phillips, writer, commentator and former Republican Party strategist, said we can thank our geographic position that puts us close to Asia, the coming world power center.

He also said the city should be grateful for its lack of ties to the beleagured financial sector, a relationship that will take its toll on cities like San Francisco.

Still, it could get scary, even for we lucky ones.

Phillips is the author of  “Bad money: Reckless finance, failed politics and the global crisis of American capitalism.” (Sounds like a great children’s bed-time book, doesn’t it?) He said the U.S. has made some bad decisions such as over-reliance on the financial sector as a driving industry while letting the manufacturing industry go, and by piling up an enormous amount of debt.

Add to that plummeting housing prices, commodities inflation and oil prices further dragging down the faltering dollar, and “it is striking in how many things are circling us,” he said.

“We don’t know what this is, but the probability is that this is the first downturn of the next economic era,” Phillips said. “This is much more than just some normal recession.”

To really get out of this trouble, Phillips said the country needs “smarter leadership” in the White House, a comprehensive energy policy and some distance from the financial sector.

“People who just worship the free market, you can’t plan on something like that,” Phillips said. “I think it’s time for something that will restore a little balance, like value engineering.”