I agree with you on this (and most everything you post). Oil at 440 a barrel would be priced so far out of the realm of reality, that EVERYTHING would shut down. Literally, no one would be able to buy anything, and most would be unable to drive to work. Some people now may spend several hundred a month in gas to go to work (When I lived in the metro area, and gas was back at $2.50/gallon a few years ago, I spent nearly $300/month, and that was in a gas-saving Corolla!). If gas quadrupled, I sure as heck could not have afforded the extra $500-1000/month (depending on how much other driving I cut out), and It may have actually paid off to NOT go into work some days (this was many years ago, when I had just started a new job and didn’t make much money).
Anyway, you’re absolutely correct. The world literally runs off of cheap transportation. If we don’t have it, people are going to get really feisty, really quick. No more cheap fuel, means no more cheap food. And if food isn’t cheap, and people are starving, it’ll be World War 3 in a matter of weeks, if not days.
Gas hit $3.99 Friday and now, other than the to/from work hour, the roads are deserted. Nobody is going anywhere except work.
Two months of $4 gas will crash the economy in rural states where people have to drive long distances to work. All their extra money gets spent on gas and gas related inflation.