Is Peak Economy the New Peak Oil?

I used to get five e-mails a day telling me that rising oil prices were proof that the argument put forth We Will Never Run Out of Oil was incorrect. I used to get several more e-mails a day telling me why oil futures would always underprice the future price of oil. Sure oil prices have always fluctuated in the past, but this time it's different! Oil prices are on an unstoppable upward climb!

Oops.

It has been over a month since I have received an e-mail like that. But that doesn't mean that peak oilers have stopped e-mailing. It just means I get messages such as this from an @peakoil.com address:

Clearly you are not seeing the big picture. we are heading towards more than just a depression, we are heading for an economic collapse. Millions more will be unemployed before this year is out.

Since October of 2008 1000+ companies in the US, have layed off at least 1000 people per. Yet, our government is claiming that unemployment is only at 6%?

Perhaps you should stop looking at the number they give you, and do the research yourself.

I hate to answer questions with questions, but this leads me to ask the following:

1. Can we really have something 'worse' than a depression?
2. Where can I obtain a list of the 1000+ companies that have layed off "at least 1000 people per".

That being said, even if we look at "the number they give you", the picture certainly is not rosy. From the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Among the unemployed, the number of persons who lost their job and did not expect to be recalled to work rose by 615,000 to 4.4 million in October. Over the past 12 months, the size of this group has increased by 1.7 million.

I do not see how these figures contradict the claim that the unemployment rate is at 6.5% (which is in the BLS report).

What is clear is what Bryan Caplan calls the pessimistic bias. That many people just need something to be worried about. First it was peak oil, but now prices have gone down, that worry is less trendy (even though the concern is no less valid than before). Now we're worried about a global economic collapse. Once the economy turns around (and it eventually will), I am sure we will find a new threat to modernity.