In a nutshell... world oil production is peaking while world oil demand continues to rise. North Sea oil production for Great Britain dropped 10% last year. Norway's oil exports are at an 11 year low. The majority of the world's oil production comes from a few large oil fields that are over 50 years old and nearing the end of peak production. There has not been enough oil found the past 25 years to replace these fields once they go into decline. The price of oil is more than likely going to continue to rise until it has an effect on our oil consumption habits.
In America at least it has a long way to go then. Even at the higher prices that everyone is bitching about, gasoline consumption is up 8% from last year at this time.
Wishful thinking. Most of the oil that has ever been found is still in the ground. It requires more money to get out of the ground, and oil prices traditionally have not supported the additional investment.
Our prices aren't caused by an actual lack of existing oil, they are caused by man made restrictions in supply. We have declared huge oil-producing swaths of land off limits for drilling. We have elminated refinery construction as demand increases. And we have shut the door to alternative forms of energy such as nuclear.
If reason and common sense could ever sneak past congress without being killed and eaten, the price of energy would be much, much lower and much more stable.
As it is, our current energy policy is essentially a KGB designed plot to destroy us, enacted and crafted by people too stupid to understand what they are doing, still serving a long-dead master.