Missing the Next 10-Year Downturn: Analysis and Insights

Heat Treat Today publishes twelve print magazines annually and included in each is a letter from the publisher, Doug Glenn. This letter from the July 2026 Annual Super Brands Issue print edition considers whether the heat treat industry’s roughly 10-year downturn cycle will repeat in 2028-2030, weighing low energy prices against the risk of a financial-instability-driven correction.

Feel free to contact Doug at doug@heattreattoday.com if you have a question or comment.

Since the early 1990s, the thermal processing and heat treating industry has experienced a significant recession or slowing about every 10 years. The last great downturn happened 2008–2010. When 2018–2020 rolled around, everyone was optimistic that we had skirted the 10-year cycle. Then COVID hit, and there was a drastic and immediate downturn. It was dramatic; however, it was not typical nor caused by the usual mysterious economic causes. In fact, had COVID not hit, it seems likely we would have missed the 10-year cyclical slowdown.

Now we’re approaching 2028–2030 — hard to believe! The question is whether we will skirt the next 10-year bust.

Why We Might Miss It: Energy Prices

Economies are largely unpredictable. That’s primarily because economies are largely incomprehensible. They’re simply too big and too complex to be understood, much less predicted. Those believing that economies need to be managed and planned will find renewed vigor for their command and control theories with the advent of artificial intelligence (AI). They’ll claim that AI can make sense of the millions upon millions of individual decisions that are made each second, and because AI can understand and make sense of it, mankind will once again be able to control and plan even the most complex economies. They will try — I predict failure.

That being said, it is possible that we will miss the next 10-year cycle because there have been some major shifts in the economy over the past several years. The primary shift has to do with energy prices. Manufacturing follows low energy prices. That’s the simple principle. Unless our policymakers mess it up, it is very likely that energy prices will continue to be relatively low compared to other industrialized economies. For that reason alone, I fully anticipate that these United States will see continued economic growth for the next 10–20 years.

Why We Might NOT Miss It: Financial Instability

On the other hand (because economists always have two, if not three, hands!), there is a very foundational reason why we may not escape a 2028–2030 downturn and that is financial instability.

For those familiar with the simplicity and beauty of the Austrian Business Cycle Theory (ABCT), easy money (i.e., an increase in the supply of money) leads to recession. What artificially goes up must come crashing down. Without going into the depths of the theory, suffice it to say that when the economy is artificially stimulated by inflation (i.e., an increase in the money supply, also known as “easy money” or “quantitative easing” or “lower interest rates”), the economy will experience an artificial high. Then, once some time passes, the readjustment (“correction,” “recession,” “downturn,” etc.) will inevitably take place.

ABCT has pretty much always been proven right. Some will dispute that, but by and large, it is dead on.

In our current situation, it is almost certain that all the quantitative easing that took place during the COVID years due to fear of a major, worldwide economic crash will one day come back to bite us. We’ve not yet seen a major correction or readjustment since the COVID years of inflation, and I don’t see any chance that we won’t “pay the price” for our profligate monetary policy and experience a pretty significant downturn in the next 5–8 years.

Then again (or “on the third hand”), no one ever knows for sure until it happens. Economies are too big, too complicated, and too mysterious to predict. Whatever happens, let’s remain calm and continue to diligently apply ourselves to making others’ lives better.