First, I read a number of magazines, newspapers, and books. I scan the news from CNN and Bloomberg TV. And I watch about 5 TV shows and college football. Since many people are more interested in the books I read, I will list and comment on them, first.

Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert’s Peak by Kenneth S. Deffeyes ISBN 0-8090-295-1 * I consider this book to be the primary source on the topic of “Peak Oil”. It is a bit technical in places, but if you had Algebra II, you should be able to handle it. This book makes it very clear that peak oil means the rate of production of crude oil and not whether there is any crude oil. And peak refers to the maximum rate of production of crude oil. Mr. Deffeyes does go into what peak oil will mean to our country and the world. He offers a few suggestions on what we should do about it.

Why Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller: Oil And The End Of Globalization by Jeff Rubin ISBN 978-1-4000-6850-0 * This book goes into another aspect of crude oil availability. It tells why crude oil will get into short supply and how fast. While many critics of peak oil say it will happen until 2020 or even 2030, Mr. Rubin says the effective peak oil for the US has already arrived. He bases this insight on the increasing competition for the available oil from China and India, and on the decreasing amount of oil that is being exported from countries that are using more and more of their own oil. One example is Mexico. Mexico will stop being an exporter of oil and become an importer of oil sometime in 2010 or early 2011. Since Mexico is one of the US major suppliers, this will put a major dent in our oil availability.

$20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better by Christopher Steiner ISBN 978-0-446-54954-7 * This book describes the changes in our daily lives as the price of gasoline increases dollar by dollar. However, on page 5, Mr. Steiner is expecting some new entrepreneur will invent some new something that will keep the hungry wolf at bay. In this case, the wolf is the cost and decreasing availability of oil and other non-renewable fuels. The book is interesting in its descriptions of the changes. But I think our nation will have to suffer a lot of pain and misery before it will find the political will to change centuries old attitudes and habits. I know about some of these inventions, but people are resisting them mightily because they can’t change their habits.

The End of Food by Paul Roberts ISBN 978-0-618-60623-8 * The title should be the End of Cheap Food according to the author, but his publisher wanted something shocking. Anyway, the effects of higher fuel costs and diversion of food stocks to other uses (read ethanol) has already made itself known during the run up of oil prices in 2008. While we were worrying about getting to work, many places in the world were worrying about getting food to eat. Food riots broke out in several places because it cost to much to transport food to distribution points. And food was costing more because the farmers were paying higher fuel costs for each stage of food production.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond ISBN 0-670-03337-5 * This book is a bit scary when you compare our society with the examples Mr. Diamond has in his book. Basically, societies must examine the roots of their economies and determine if their economies are dependent on a source of energy (usually in the form of food or contribute to the production of food) that can be used up, disrupted, or lost by the activities of the society. The society on Easter Island is given as an example of what happens when a society forgets what should have a higher priority, food production or monuments to someone’s greatness. Our global society has become dependent on crude oil for the production of food in sufficient quantities and quality. This dependence needs to be examined to determine if we can break the dependency before the oil runs out and the food it provides us does also.

I started reading the next set of books because of Bush’s Great Recession. From 2002 to 2007, I became aware that something was seriously misaligned in our economy.