Biography
Dr. Philip K. Verleger, Jr. is Owner and President of PKVerleger LLC, an independent consulting firm. Dr. Verleger’s research focuses primarily on the function and structure of energy commodity markets. His studies also encompass the changing relationship between the energy and economic sectors.
Dr. Verleger earned his Ph.D. in Economics from MIT in 1971. He began his work in energy as a consultant to the Ford Foundation Energy Policy Project in 1972. He then served as a Senior Staff Economist on President Ford’s Council of Economic Advisers and as Director of the Office of Energy Policy at the US Treasury in President Carter’s administration. He later served as a Senior Research Scholar and Lecturer at Yale University’s School of Organization and Management and as a Vice President in Drexel Burnham Lambert’s Commodities Division. Dr Verleger was a Senior Fellow and then Visiting Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics from 1986 until 2012. From 2008 to 2010, he served as the David E. Mitchell/EnCana Professor of Management at theUniversityofCalgary’s Haskayne School of Business.
During his career, Dr. Verleger has predicted many of the major structural changes in the energy sector. In 1986, he was the first economist to comprehend and explain the appearance and development of energy commodity markets. This analysis led to his prediction of the oil price collapse that year. Dr. Verleger has chronicled the evolution of these markets since then and been a leading figure globally in driving their growth. In 2012, he was the first economist to write extensively on the United States’ emergence as an energy exporter. His latest papers chronicle the implications of this unexpected tectonic shift for the US and world economies.
Speech Topics
Advantage Americas
The United States and, to a lesser extent, Canada are on the verge of a great century – or at least a great half century. The success will be due to a number of factors:
First, Vladimir Putin is a secret North American Agent who is doing everything possible to throw the economic growth game to North America. Thanks to Russia, Europe is condemned to decades of no growth. Asia, too, will suffer because Putin will squeeze energy markets. Business will responded by relocating to North America.
Second, China will choke on its own smog. The failure of the Chinese to protect their environment will soon strangle their economy – to the benefit of North America.
Third – North America (the United States) can stop defending much of the world. NATO has become irrelevant. The American taxpayer will benefit from lower defense expenditures.
Poor Canada
Canada’s national anthem begins “Oh Canada, Our Home and Native Land.” Soon these words may change to “Poor Canada, Our Home and Native Land.” Middle Eastern oil producers have begun a price war aimed at high-cost producers of heavy sour crude. Canada’s oil sands firms are a primary target. The country would do far better to “sue for peace” today by canceling some expansion plans and putting pipeline projects on hold. Otherwise, prices will drop to levels that lead to bankruptcies, disorderly liquidations, permanent shutdown of many projects, and Calgary becoming a ghost town for the umpteenth time.
