The wage setting mechanism in America is too rigid. If gasoline went up to $10 a gallon, how long would it take most HR offices to deal with the demands from frantic workers? MONTHS.
Not everyone thinks that is a BAD thing.
It's a certain Community Organizer's fondest dream, to be able to destroy the Great Satan.
You are overly optimistic. The change of the value of the dollar has to propagate all the way through the chain, from that gas pump to the workers, to the company's product, to the product's user, to the money source of that user, and so on. If the chain ends as a government purchase then it may take years, and an act of Congress, to change the rates or at least allocate enough money so that the government can buy your product.
If the gas price goes to $10 then most smaller companies will simply close the doors because otherwise they'd be the buffer between low prices upstream and high prices downstream (that includes employees, materials, facilities, taxes and fees, services, etc.)
So today, for example, a container of a weed killer concentrate costs $40. It's expensive, but it's good for a large lawn. If suddenly this same container is now $80 ... guess what, I won't buy it. It's just too expensive. So the manufacturer of the chemical will see reduced sales; not only they can't raise salaries - they may be doing layoffs, since the volume of production is now smaller, and they have no use for so many people. And if every manufacturer raises their prices (what else can they do?) then those two things happen all over the country. Let me name them again:
Today some numbers were flying about Egypt - 40% unemployment and low ($12/day) salaries for those who have work. This is exactly what happens when the financial system starts failing.
How much gas at $10 will anyone buy?
A local gas station doubled it’s prices early morning of 9/11. The only reason I know that is because a home health nurse was headed out early morning to see a patient and needed gas. Nobody else needed gas that bad and by late morning the jerks had dropped their prices back to where they were when they were bypassed by everyone else.
That’s about all we have to control prices.
I'm pretty sure wages in Zimbabwe didn't rise to meet their hyperinflation; didn't keep them from seeing hyperinflation.