Former President Bill Clinton says energy will produce the next 10-year U.S. economic up-cycle. The tech industry produced the dramatic investment returns of the 1990s, and dollars chasing the next big thing produced the residential real estate boom and its tremendous wealth and profit-taking in this decade.


Next up for the flow of investment capital: energy.


Clinton delivered an opening keynote address to attendees at the Rodman & Renshaw annual global investment conference this fall in New York. The I-banking and financial-advisory firm practices across healthcare (pharmaceuticals and biotech) and natural resources, including alternative energy.


The firm purchased energy-focused I-banker and advisor COSCO Capital Management LLC earlier this year, gaining an energy practice, which is now known as The Rodman Energy Group.


Transforming the U.S. energy-consumption pattern will result in the greatest economic growth during the next 10 years, Clinton said. Investment capital and jobs will be born from converting the country from a largely hydrocarbon-consuming economy to one of a mixture of hydrocarbons and alternative energy, including solar and wind, and in improving energy efficiency, involving both improved choices of which type of energy source to use and a reduction in wastefulness.


For example, changing light bulbs and light switches requires work.


He added that world oil prices will settle at about $100 a barrel, and trend up from there because there is finite supply going forward. “Just like oil was not going to stay at $140 a barrel, it won’t stay at $70 either.”
The up-cycle in U.S. economic growth that follows this coming energy up-cycle will be biotechnology, he added.


“If I were you, I would be optimistic in the midst of all of this mess.” It isn’t the first time financial markets have been in great distress. “None of us is immune to greed, stupidity and old-fashioned error.”


Decisions made in this correction can bring great opportunity, he added, and, if done right, the U.S. economy will bring a different and more broadly shared prosperity. He added, “People have always predicted the demise of America…Everyone who has invested against America has lost…We keep stumbling in the right direction.”

Comments