http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0611/p08s01-comv.html

The narrative that western consumption is the problem is largely a myth.

All western governments tax oil. They take active steps to decrease demand.

Major emerging economies (India, China, Indonesia, etc.) subsidize it. They take active steps to increase demand.

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2006/09/briefing-for-descent.html

I would quote this phrase, which highlights the view as Deneen:

“As the global economy comes apart, human needs remain, and local economies take up the slack as best they can with the resources on hand, producing new opportunities and breathing new life into moribund sectors of the economy. As public health fails, populations decline, taking pressure off all other sectors of the economy. As existing political arrangements collapse, finally, new regimes take their place, and like all new regimes these can be counted on to put stability at the top of their agendas. Thus we’re facing a period of crisis perhaps a quarter century long, followed by a period of renewed stability, with another round of crises waiting in the wings. Historically speaking, this is how civilizations fall, in a stair-step process alternating periods of crisis with breathing spaces at progressively lower levels of economic and political integration.”

“Relationships among resources, capital, waste, and production form the basis for an ecological model of collapse in which production fails to meet maintenance requirements for existing capital. Societies facing such crises after having depleted essential resources risk catabolic collapse, a self-reinforcing cycle of contraction converting most capital to waste.”

Nice perspective. I agree the rise in oil prices probably did trigger the collapse of the financial sector. The boom and bust cycle is nicely covered in John Micheal Greer’s theory of catabolic collapse.

Converting capital to waste is a pretty apt description of our situation. Unfortunately nobody is fessing up to the realization that money is not capital, only a means to distribute it. The essay is available here if you interested:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~wtv/powerdown/greer.htm