"The fact that you consider something meaningless does not make it flawed."

True, but the fact that this issue is covered clearly by larger thinkers in Econ 101 does make it meaningless in terms of "conservation" or "planning for the future".

This hole idea is so common they gave it a name: Malthusian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_catastrophe)

And there have been empirically proven answers to this question. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Simon)

If this chart means anything, it really only applies to commodities brokers, not to end consumers.