A Presidential Energy Policy: Twenty-Five Points Addressing the Siamese Twins of Energy and Money

This book does a great job of synthesizing everything that's happened to create our current economic situation, and the dire consequences that will be coming our way. With world economies now contracting, the only way that economies can expand once again is to produce more energy than what we're producing right now. The problem, though, is that we've reached the peak of annual petroleum output in the world, and no new major, confirmed sources of petroleum have been discovered since the 1960s.Any increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) requires an increased consumption of energy, whether you're in a manufacturing, distribution, or service business. This continually increasing consumption of energy is what's fueled the great industrial revolution since the 1800s, and what has increased our quality of life immeasurably. But over the past few years we've only been able to extract less and less petroleum out of the ground, and this is what's caused our economic collapse. Less petroleum being available at higher prices means less GDP and lower profitability. In addition, the banking sector requires continued expansion of the economy in order for it to prosper, and the fact that the banking and financial industries collapsed just a few months after gasoline prices peaked in the Summer of 2008 is really no surprise. With substantially higher petroleum prices, businesses were no longer profitable and families were getting squeezed financially, so the entire economy came crashing down...including having people and businesses no longer able to pay their loans. But gas prices will rise again, and further economic collapse is inevitable. In addition, since energy is such an important component in the growth, production, and distribution of food, food prices will be rising, and more and more people worldwide will no longer have food for themselves.This book is an important read as it's not easy to find all of this information all in one place. And it brings to us a very important explanation of what's been happening in our world, and how, despite what we've been hearing in the media, there are no workable solutions to our energy problem right now that won't require dramatic changes in the quality of our lives.

Mike Ruppert begins by telling us that "energy and money are inextricably connected in very profound ways...." Furthermore he notes, "The current economic implosion will and can only result in the greatest--and longest lasting--economic depression in human history--a new Dark Age, especially if some fundamental sea changes are not made immediately."Not willing to ever consider himself a candidate for any elected office, Mike states unequivocally that A Presidential Energy Policy has been written for Barack Obama and will be successful even if it does nothing more than open the door to genuine dialog on energy and money; "one cannot be discussed without the other."However, this book adhere to the agenda of any political party. As with nearly all of Mike's writing over the years, some parts are resoundingly liberal and resemble FDR's New Deal, and some parts echo a conservative Republican or Libertarian approach simply because Mike's overarching concern has always been to "implement policies that will keep the nation functioning and that will protect the American people and the world as a whole." Having said this, he asserts that no president can protect corporations and banks with taxpayer money and at the same time allow the nation and its working and middle class citizens to fail. Unfortunately, that is currently what Barack Obama, despite political rhetoric to the contrary, appears to be doing.In this book Mike is thinking like a president and asks the reader to do the same. He also asks us to abandon all of the hype about alternative energies, green technology, and magic bullet solutions to the realities of Peak Oil and boldly confront the fact that "It is not possible to use enormous amounts of resources to address a resource shortage."Localization is key. Moreover, says Mike, all local responses to a tightening of oil supply will be dictated by the degree of self-sufficiency to which each community has liberated itself from dependence on anything from outside.What Mike has emphasized repeatedly throughout the book is an urgent transformation of our thinking--a mentality that has left miles of unsold new cars sitting in lots all over Los Angeles--cars with seven gallons of oil in each tire. Only a profound soul sickness could create and maintain a civilization that is destroying everything in its path with little thought to the suicidal trajectory into which it has become locked.I ask you to read A Presidential Energy Policy as soon as possible and share it with your friends and family. Share it with your elected officials and your neighbors and begin now to educate your community in preparation for the inevitable consequences of the Triple Crisis. Unquestionably, we are entering a new Dark Age, but the information Mike has offered, if heeded, could punctuate the darkness with a thousand points of light.

I retrained out of my 20-year career as an oil exploration surveyor in 1998. Reason? We were running out of oil to find and work was getting scarce. For me, it was proof positive that "Peak Oil" is here and now. Read and consider our future as exporting countries start having trouble filling our orders. Ruppert's explanation of how cheap energy is tied to economics is worthy of some deep thought. See also "The Long Emergency" by Jim Kunstler. Consider acquiring some land that you can sink a shovel into. Get to know and love your neighbors - travel may one day be a luxury reserved for the filthy stinking rich and the military. Windmills seem to be the cheapest source of alternative energy for your home....plan now or be left freezing in the dark! The 25 suggestions he makes at the end of the book might work in a Utopian society, but I know they won't float in the current geopolitical climate.

My 3-stars is meant as "read the book" but I certainly cannot heartily recommend this book as either an excellent resource on peak oil and its connection to the present-day economy nor as an example of the fine research and writing that Mr. Ruppert put forth in Rubicon. As noted by another reviewer, he has kind of taken on a cult following and they came out with many 5-star ratings here, but on its own merit I thought the book was mainly a rehash / resummarization of M. King Hubbert, Jay Hansen, Jim Kunstler, Richard Heinberg, Matt Simons and others with little new to say. I still think that Mike Ruppert has "connected the dots" for many people over the years and that he has a first rate mind. I can overlook the multitude of editing errors, the tortured phrasing of many sentences, and the self-aggrandizing tone, except that, in the end, this book seems to be Mike phoning it in.