Got oil?

Have you seen the ads for the upcoming movie "Syriana"? They make it clear that the filmmakers are unaware of a few ageless, unchangeable laws of economics. First, that rising oil prices cause an increase in oil exploration, discovery, and extraction technology development, because the greater expense will be paid for by the higher price, as per the law of supply and demand. (We are not, as stated in the ads for the movie, "running out of oil.") When there's a larger supply of oil, caused by the increased exploration, discovery, and extraction, the price will then start to drop to levels relatively close to where they were before they started to rise in the first place due to the "world oil shortage" scare... as per the law of supply and demand. (We are not going to pay "$21 per gallon [for gasoline] at the pump" as stated in the ads for the movie. Not without massive inflation, which is caused by government, not by oil companies or Arabs.)

I guess I was wrong. I guess the filmmakers of Syriana aren't unaware of a few laws of economics, they're unaware of one simple, easy-to-understand, basic law of economics. Supply and demand: keeping the world's known oil reserves pretty much steady (or rising), regardless of how much we use, since the nineteenth century.

SRS