I suspect the world economy will decline from now on due to resource thinning and accumulated burdens. However one Federal Treasurer and RBA Governor after another assure us everything must get better. Look at the evidence. Casualisation of work, inability to buy a home, relentless food and fuel price inflation rising higher than wages. Young people question whether it is worth incurring a HECS debt to go to uni to be subsequently underemployed.

Complicating the message is the fact up til now Asia wants to buy our commodities so they can also consume big time. As that phenomenon wanes perhaps everybody will realise there is not enough wealth to go round. A temporary hiccup the suits will tell us. Let's see what it's like five years from now.

Meanwhile the lying rodent was featured in this mornings papers predicting that everything is going to get better and better for everyone both here in Australia and everywhere else too.

It has been a while since we've had a 'we're all rooned' story from the anti-population lobby.

Michael is the titular head of the Stop Population Growth Now Party, "a body of Australians seeking to reduce Australia's population growth to zero as a matter of urgency." (from his website).

When every you read stories such as these think to yourself 'this isn't a story about energy or economics, it's a story about zero population'.

People who advocate for ZPG have more in common with the American National Rifle Association than any pro-environment movement.

Not only are they anti-family - they want to legislate what you do in bed. What they know about economics and trade positions you could etch on the head of a pin head.

No doubt about the “big” part, but lies and fantasies morph into each other in this world of politics, where ordered society is led by a supremacy of narrowly focused competition: this is the engine pulling the train of social/economic advancement.

The ancient Greeks, as they plundered their own and neighouring landscapes, had their fantasies - such as the horn of plenty. During his infancy, the God Zeuss suckled from this, and out of it came unlimited goodies. More than three millennia later, we are not fundamentally different. We have done little more than accelerate processes, especially during the past two centuries. And if that other cornucopian energy source, human-engineered atomic fusion, become available - what would that do? Unfortunately it would accelerate the approaching depletion of all fundamental resources upon which our species depends.

With a continuing material growth paragidm, that is inevitable.

There's nothing wrong with a good lie if it gets you laid.

Just ask any Co2 hugging global warming scientist. They know its DNGW (Dirty Nappy Global climate change) that is occuring but there are penalties beyond comprehension for telling that truth. Women can be bitches if they are not allowed to destroy the environment with their issue and get away with it scott-free and with ribbons and bows on.

Easier to blame CO2 and get famous, rich and laid!
And while we're at it there will never be Peak Oil and there will always be strong 4% economic growth because the world's resources are infinite. If this were not true Our Governments would not be so powerful and clearly we ARE.

As long as the world is full of suckers - never give 'em an Even break!

Yours truly Wayne Swan

Australian Treasure par excellence.

Michael Lardelli

The present upheaval in the energy industry as a "small uptick" in shale oil production.

BBBBBBWWWWWWWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH!

Michael, have you given up reading altogether? Surely you cann't have cut yourself off from the energy industry news so completely as to ignore the massive increases in reserves of shale oil and gas? It is, most emphatically not a figment of anyone's imagination or a lie. Canada has become a major oil producer whether it fits in with your beliefs or not.

While there is necessarily some initial hype associated with these discoveries, don't kid yourself that it will go away or that US oil production will not escalate - albeit after a few years.

Production has levelled off in the past few years, mainly due to OPEC's failure to invest in production facilities, but the industry itself has taken a massive turn that has thrown all projections of a few years ago out the window.

The article is basically nutty throwback and should be ignored.