[Chris25]

Perhaps I am the only one but I honestly think 2007 is the peak year for the economically developed world.

By this I mean materially, "we've never had it so good".

Surely with rising interest rates worldwide and inflation + the high cost of oil things are shortly going to fall. We are on one heck of a slippery slope, with the whole lot- money, food, stability, trade at the top. All thats needed is a tiny little budge and the whole lot collapses.

We've had the party, now's time for the hangover. And boy have we had too much to drink.

[pup55]

Whippersnapper.

1972 was the peak year.

A joe lunchbucket with a high school diploma could feed, clothe and house a stay at home mom and three kids, with full benefits.

[Bas]

2007 could be the peak year in the global economy, but it also might be later; as with peak oil, we might only be able to say in hindsight what the peak economic year was. It looks like in 2007 the world economy will still grow fast, and the growth might (most probably) slow in 2008 but still be positive. The same goes for 2009.

[lawnchair]

Pup55, it's easier to posit that somewhere about 1972 was the economic peak year for the United States. It's a little harder to say that for the world. The US oil peak was 1970, and we've been sending money overseas for energy ever since. The Nixon-era crunch of 1971 ended any real basis for the dollar. And, then came the oil shocks.

For symbolism, though, the date I would name for the US (maybe world) peak is December 14, 1972. That was the day Apollo 17 blasted off from the Moon and, very possibly forever, ended the era of on-our-feet human exploration.

[Narz]

I voted 2009. But it might be a year or two later.

[steam_cannon]

Amusingly, I vote 1907 as the year of peak economic growth, for the United States.

Because that was the year of peak "production of energy". At that time 7% growth per year was considered good, where as after that time the energy extraction growth rate cooled to 2% per year. Dr. Hubbert can explain this more eloquently...

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dr. Hubbert', '[')img]http://www.technocracyinc.org/images/articles/hub-gro17.gif[/img]

Figure 17 Is a graph plotted on a semilogarithmic scale of the production of energy from coal, oil, gas, and water power and a small amount of nuclear power from 1850 to 1969. From 1850 to 1907 the production of energy increased exponentially at a rate of 6.91 percent per year, with a doubling period of 10.0 years. Then during the three-year period from 1907 to 1910, the growth rate dropped abruptly to a mean rate of 1.77 percent per year and the doubling period increased to 39 years.

Dr. HUBBERT. I am principally saying -- in the first place that the break of 1910 is, I think, a major event in American history, and we didn't even know it happened. We have been coasting along under the illusion that we had far more growth since 1910 than we had actually had. If you want to go back to the decade of the 1920's, that was regarded during the time as a period of a great boom. Well, actually industrially, although the industrial production in 1929 was the highest up until that date, it was still about 30 percent less than where it would have been if that break hadn't occurred in 1910.

So that the decade of the 1920's was a boom period on paper, not industrially. Industrially it was a slowing down period.

National Energy Conservation Policy Act of 1974, Hearings before the Subcommittee on the Environment of the committee on Interior and Insular Affairs House of Representatives. June 6, 1974.
http://www.energybulletin.net/3845.html

[pup55]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t's a little harder to say that for the world