Food and energy are a pretty small proportion of my expenditures, compared to discretionary stuff like books, movies, etc. One would expect energy to increase i

Food and energy are a pretty small proportion of my expenditures, compared to discretionary stuff like books, movies, etc. One would expect energy to increase in price over time, per Hotelling's research (the return from investing in energy assets can only beat the return from savings if these assets go up in value over time). It's no longer as clear as it once seemed that steady increases in the standard of living for the common man can be taken as a given. Well, that depends. If we have overestimated the availability of finite resources, that is true. But just saying so isn't enough -- to be taken seriously, you should rephrase your belief as something like "As my long energy, long basic materials, and short consumer discretionaries portfolio demonstrates, I believe that higher prices for energy and basic materials, coupled with lower average wages, will reduce the standard of living and thus reduce consumption of non-essential goods." And there's a catch-22, here: if you and all the other people who talk that way are also investing that way, energy and basic materials prices will rise, to the point that balance is restored.