Peak Oil Problems

Add Germany to the list of countries gravely concerned with peak oil fallout in the next decade or so.

Peak oil has happened or will happen some time around this year, and its consequences could threaten the continued survival of democratic governments, says a secret Germany military report that was leaked online.

According to Der Spiegel, the report from a think-tank inside the German military warns that shrinking global oil supplies will threaten the world's economic foundations and possibly lead to mass-scale upheaval within the next 15 to 30 years.

International trade would suffer as the cost of transporting goods across oceans would soar, resulting in "shortages in the supply of vital goods," the report states, as translated by Der Spiegel.

The result would be the collapse of the industrial supply chain. "In the medium term the global economic system and every market-oriented national economy would collapse," the report states.

That collapse could, in turn, cause many countries to abandon free markets principles, the report states. Deals would be struck between oil-exporting and oil-importing countries that would fix prices and remove large amounts of oil from the global market place.

Cheery news to say the least.  As oil gets tougher to find and countries like China and India consume more and more of it to power their billions of workers, the US effect on oil becomes less and less.  Despite having massive oil stockpiles here in the States now due to the economic depression, oil prices are exactly what they were a year ago, hovering between $70-$80 a barrel.

We're not in control of this ball game anymore.