After Peak Oil: Apocalypse or Opportunity?

Source: Ventura County Star [Feb 06, 2006]

SYNOPSIS: West Coast Asset Management Inc.'s co-founders discuss the investment implications of peak oil.

In 1942, 17-year-old Pvt. Harold Zatkowsky sat down for his first breakfast in the U.S. Army. "That was the first time in my life when I got enough to eat."

America hasn't always been rich, but most of our generation always had enough to eat. Too many of us younger than 60 see films like "Seabiscuit" and view the Depression as some sort of literary device. But not so long ago, Americans lived very differently than we do now. With our accelerated rate of change, how differently will we live 20 or 40 years from now? Will the end of cheap oil destroy our standard of living or create new opportunities to improve our lives? Or both?

Last month's article prompted some readers to look up "Peak Oil" on the Internet, where they found predictions of continuous Middle East resource wars and all-out nuclear conflict with China, Russia, India, etc. They found charges that the entire Peak Oil discussion is prompted by oil interests (and investors like ourselves) to increase prices and profits, and they saw life-after-the-peak scenarios that make the "Mad Max" movies look like a romp through Disneyland. The pessimists' vision evokes Treasure Island's Long John Silver, who declared, "Them that dies will be the lucky ones."

( To read the complete story, Click here )