Economic recovery in the United States will be sluggish thanks to “bankrupt” financial institutions and debt-laden consumers, says billionaire investor George Soros.

U.S. financial institutions in the Americas have written down or lost $1.1 trillion in the last two years, while savings rates have risen to the highest levels in 24 years as wary consumers tighten their purse strings, according to Bloomberg.

“The United States has a long way to go,” Soros said at an International Monetary Fund and World Bank meeting in Istanbul, Turkey.

Soros urged leaders to stick with plans to beef up regulation, which could become difficult once recovery moves ahead.

“It will be very difficult to accomplish,” Soros says.

“The crash of 2008 now seems like a bad dream and people like to treat it like a bad dream and forget about it and get back to business as usual.”

Economic indicators suggest recovery is taking place and the recession is thawing or even ending.

Stock prices have been rising since March but there are some out there who say equity prices will fall.

“I see the risk of a correction, especially when the markets now realize that the recovery is not rapid and V-shaped, but more like U-shaped,” says Nouriel Roubini, a New York University economic professor who is said to have accurately predicted the extent of the current financial crisis.

“That might be in the fourth quarter or the first quarter of next year,” says Roubini, according to Marketwatch.