Dangerous Economic Assumptions

It’s crucial to understand that World Oil Production stopped growing in 2005 so economic growth stopped and momentum began to decay. Production peaked in 2008 and will raggedly decline forever in the future; existing oil field depletion rates are greater than planned new oil field developments. Perhaps we are blind to geologically slow moving events, creating a monolithic dependence on a single source of energy such as a variety of potatoes in 1840 Ireland, failure to load lifeboats immediately after the Titanic hit the iceberg and oil today.

Why?

Our economy is still based on five assumptions that are no longer valid:

• Volume: Oil availabiity expanding faster than demand.
• Price: Oil priced at $30 a barrel, gas at $1.45 a gallon.
• Quality: Net Energy of 20:1, 20 barrels available for every barrel used to get more oil.
• Growth: Oil supply will grow to support economic growth.
• Debt: What we cannot afford to pay for, we can borrow from the future.