Tom Whipple debunks the speculation whipping boy:

The energy issue of the week is whether high gasoline prices are being caused by supply no longer being able to keep with demand or by speculators garnering untoward riches at the expense of hardworking motorists.

The facts, economic theory, and the most knowledgeable observers such as the U.S. Secretary of Energy are telling us that the problem is one of supply and demand. Speculators, however, make an irresistible scapegoat that few politicians can ignore. They are nameless, faceless (probably foreign) individuals that can be bashed with impunity without the slightest hint of political incorrectness.

Blaming speculators is now worldwide. OPEC officials routinely mention the role played by speculators as the chief cause of high oil prices. German leaders have proposed a worldwide ban on oil trading by speculators. The transport chief for Germany’s Social Democrats said his party will call on the G8 powers to prohibit leveraged trading on energy contracts, claiming that 25 percent of the current crude price is caused by speculators.

He also predicts the collapse of megacities:

The fuel subsidy situation obviously is not going to get any better. Oil prices will continue to rise. In the advanced countries the solution to increasing oil prices will be to park the cars and planes and start riding on buses and trains, while continuing to outbid the poor countries for the remaining supplies of oil. Those living in the world’s new mega- and hypercities are going to have a far tougher time. Oil has built these monstrosities where 100s of millions will be trapped without direct access to food supplies and cooking fuel. Someday, the historians will note that the collapse of many megacities was among the first real tragedies of peak oil.

The premise behind Reinventing Collapse is not new to me. With his disarmingly dry humor, Dmitry Orlov has been posting various articles relating his observations on Peak Oil sites, such as Life After the Oil Crash, and his own blog, for several years. Living between America and Russia, Orlov observed the collapse of the Soviet planned economy, as well as the creeping economic and social malaise that currently affects the US. He astutely draws useful comparisons between the rival superpowers, and offers dire predictions for those that blithely thought the US had simply prevailed on merit.

I question Orlov's assertion that Americans should emulate the political apathy of the Soviet proletariat as a strategy to survive energy collapse. It is true that the people of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) stoically survived a political and economic collapse, which to some extent was precipitated by a peak of national oil production. But during their rebound, Russia and the other FSU republics have had substantial resources of oil and natural gas remaining. Charts of FSU oil production show production peaks in the 1980s, then a deep trough, then increasing production to another, though lesser peak forming right now. The FSU's oil exports actually increased after the trough, and in some circles they are considered a swing producer of oil.

In truth, only certain third world nations have begun to experience the full effects of the Peak Oil collapse that now faces the FSU, the US, and the world. It remains to be seen who will survive and whether any will prosper.

Nevertheless, I highly recommend Orlov's book, if only for his view of our society.