I think the evidence is to the contrary, namely, that economic growth, in the modern financial sense, is predicated on increased energy consumption.

Based on what evidence do you believe that?

Yes, it's surprising (at least to me) and a little counter-intuitive that per-capita GDP has gone up so much despite per-capita energy consumption going up so little (or not at all), but that is the fact of the matter.  Accordingly, our theories should be based on what we observe, not on what we believe.

I cannot concieve of a situation where decreased energy consumption could lead to a growth based economy

It happened in the US from 1979 through 1983.

Obviously, that's not saying it will happen, but that does suggest that it can happen, so it might be an option worth looking at.

(Keep in mind also that you're pushing a bit of a false dichotomy; I was just talking about lack of growth, rather than outright decline.)

What matters is absolute growth not per capita.

Absolutely.  There are two reasons I've been talking about per-capita consumption:

First, my point was really pretty simple:  economic growth without growth in energy consumption is possible - at least theoretically - since historical evidence shows us that a group (e.g., 100M Americans) can have large growth in GDP while having no growth in energy consumption.

Second, demographic trends suggest that this may be achievable in practice.  The West - the world's major energy consumer - has a rapidly-falling population growth rate, and will reach no population growth in the medium term.  What that means is that the challenge of maintaining no overall growth in energy consumption is relatively modest for the West as a whole - about a 0.5% decrease in per-capita consumption per year - and it will get easier as time progresses, since the growth rate will get lower (all other things being equal, which of course they won't be).

I haven't been arguing that it will happen, should happen, or even necessarily can happen; what I've been arguing is that evidence does not support the claim that it can not happen, so more investigation is needed.

Even world per-capita energy consumption is only up 10% in the last 25 years (http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tablee1c.xls), despite much faster growth in real per-capita GDP, so it's not as if the increased energy efficiency in the US has (primarily) come at the expense of vastly greater energy use elsewhere.

You also fail to realize that through energy arbitrage, so to speak, our economy's energy consumption has been displaced and "globalized".

No, I addressed that explicitly, as the above quote shows.

during the last 25 years efficiency has rapidly developed, but is starting to hit a wall.

Interesting.  What is your evidence for this?

That it "makes sense" does not mean that it's true.

That even with increased efficiency you still need absolute gains annually (with required population growth) in order for financial markets to function properly. The system just doesn't work otherwise

What is your evidence for this?

The system did work otherwise, from (for example) 1979 to 1983 in the US.  Stock markets even kept going up (although the S&P500 had a crash in 1981/82, it was still higher even at the trough).

In some ways, that illustrates my overall point:  there are variety of "common wisdom" claims that people assert, and those claims typically make quite a lot of sense, but those claims may well be false.

Without evidence - hard, factual evidence - to support a claim, it's very difficult to tell what's true and what's urban myth.

So I'm trying to provide some historical and quantifiable evidence regarding some of these claims, and - having no personal preference for whether these claims turn out to be true or not - I'm pushing the conclusions that the data support.  That is my overall point.