wildcatter william rutter, jr.t the oil industry in 1959 and re-entered when the promise of profits returned. when thece of oil went up enough i started looking at deals that would payut in a reasonably short period of time and that the total estimated value of the reserve was an attractive multiple of the perceived risk. these commodity prices go up t alwaysome backown. the producers want to produce a lot. the consumers want to consume less. this is the law of supy and demand and it works. many new suppliers won their gamble. with t lure of higher oil prices and profits, oil production almost doubled in america and the o.p.e.c.ountries. as profits soared, producers began pumping even more oil, and soon there was a glut. by 1985, the price of oil had plummeted. we asked economic analyst chard gill what this story tells us about the law of supply and demand. it tells us how consumers and producers react to higher prices. with higr oiprices american consumers found ways to use less oil. their demand curve for oil had

they don't realize these wildcatters on the right -- this president means business now.to buckle like reagan did. by the way, that was an important event in reagan's career. he showed the soviets -- and tip found out this from dewayne andrews, that this president was for real. he was somebody to deal with. >> and this was the ruunion struggle over the work rules for air traffic controllers and reagan did not give in. >> not only that, he said, if you go off on a strike and break your oath as well as your contract, you'll never work for the federal government again as long as you live. >> and they didn't. >> that was how tough he was. that sent a signal. now, obama hasn't sent that signal early enough in his administration. that's a weakness on his part. i think he'll do it this time. >> you point out on page, what is it, 255, in reagan's diary, he wrote about a real issue they had over the budget early on. they were going at each other, and they were -- jim wright -- >> jobs bill. >> jim wright was the majority leader. tip o'neil was in there with him. they really had a