Many people seem to think the oil problem is over simply because the price of oil is going down

I do not think the oil problems are over at all. In fact, I think we ain't seen nuttin' yet.

Total world oil output has been flat since 2005, even though the price skyrocketed. Output did not go up because producers are basically pumping as fast as they dare, lest they ruin the wells.

If you look at mega projects coming on line, there basically isn't much after 2012.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/93602-megaprojects-predict-decline-of-oil-production

The supergiant Canterell field in Mexico is falling off a cliff at minus 36% per year now. That is extraordinary. Mexico is basically not going to have much oil to export in just two years. The thing that has saved them so far is that the price of oil has been much higher than they anticipated, but now, if the price falls, since oil exports provide half of the money of the Mexican government, well, their fiscal crisis will come sooner rather than later. Mexico supplies the US with 10% of our imported oil, so this is a huge problem for the US and any country that imports oil.

Ghawar, the biggest field ever discovered, has been yielding black gold for more than 50 years now... the sign that it is failing? From satellite photos, suddenly, Aramco is drilling thousands of new wells. Why? Because the old wells are drying up. That is what happens when a field goes into final decline. They have been pumping millions of gallons of seawater into the edges of the field for decades, trying to maintain pressure. If you do that, the field does not stop yielding oil gradually; suddenly, almost all of what is coming out is water. Cantarell was pumped with huge amounts of nitrogen to maintain field pressure, and look what is happening: -36% per year.

Forget the price of oil.
Look at the output for the last 4 years: flat.
Look at the mega projects coming on line: barely able to keep up with the declines of the big fields, and after 2012, almost nothing... while the major fields continue to decline.
The price is currently being driven down by massive currency intervention to prop up the dollar.
If there is a military strike on Iran, the price will go through the roof.

All of this depends on timing.

Other things affecting the price of oil in the medium term, say 10 years:

The Sun is a variable star. Its output has been unusually low recently. If its activity stays low, we could be in for a period of global cooling, which would make heating take up even more oil and gas. (And no, just because the Sun goes through a quiet period and the global temperature goes down does not mean it is a good idea to pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.)

Volcanic eruptions could inject a lot of dust and sulfur into the atmosphere, blocking sunlight and causing temperatures to drop.

War.

Natural disaster or attack affecting major oil facilities.

Financial crisis leading huge drop in economic activity.

Buying and selling of futures.

Dollar going up or down.

This is why it is impossible to forecast the price of oil very well. As in comedy, it is all in the timing...

While I have been watching oil for the last decade, I was not paying much attention to the economy, and so the housing bubble was a little surprising to me (But in October 2006, I did say to a realtor, "When is the housing bubble going to pop?" He replied, "It's not". Another realtor in the UK told one of my friends that house prices never go down. I told him, "That's because she was lying". I was sure enough by 2005 to tell five people to sell and to sell then and there.) So this is having a huge effect on the oil price... And THEN the whole nonsense securitized debt... and the scale of it... 20 times world GDP of worthless paper. Merrill Lynch just sold 30 billion dollars of these fine instruments for 5 cents on the dollar... and even that is a risk for the buyer.

Why is all of this happening simultaneously? Because they are all related.