So what makes Bob Reynolds smile these days? According to Putnam's CEO, when the year 2020 rolls around, we won't be obsessed with Greek debt, Euro-zone bank or U.S. housing prices.

Reynolds, speaking in front of crowd of fundsters at the MutualFundWire 2011 Influencers' Summit: See 2020 at the Mandarin Hotel in Boston today, said come New Year’s Day, 2020, the industry will be facing new challenges and opportunities, "many of which we can’t even imagine." He is bullish on the capital markets declaring that they're here to stay –- as a core element in the global financial systems -- alongside traditional banking.

"Capital markets’ influence is likely to grow over the decade to 2020 –- and push governments everywhere in the direction of fiscal restraint and accountability," he said.

Reynolds is also optimistic about demographics in the U.S., which he says are in much better shape than most of its major trading partners.

"We have higher birthrates than Europe, Japan, Russia and China…and we allow more legal immigration than the rest of the developed world combined."

Also, Reynolds, a champion of absolute return products, says he is convinced that "there will be a huge appetite for 'total' or 'absolute-return' strategies that offer at least the possibility of delivering economically meaningful, positive returns – whatever markets do." He also sees an explosion of offerings in the lifetime income arena.

Lastly, Reynolds says that for the rest of this decade, he expects the majority nations of the world, to be forced –- like it or not –- to engage in what he dubs a “race to solvency” -– curbing deficits, restoring fiscal and trade balances and finding ways to re-boot their economic growth.

"And among the major competitors, the U.S.A. is quite well positioned to 'win,'" he offers. 

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