I don’t think so. the economy will roll over before $5.00/gal. the decreas ein demand form a 25% unemployment rate will keep the price of gas down to around $4.00-$3.75/gal.
As the present recession showed in 2008 the economy just can not handle $4.00/gal gas. Loans go unpaid, homes get forclosed on, people go hungry etc etc.
In California I expect it to hit $4.00 for regular soon in the metropolitan areas if it isn’t there already.
I think anything above $4.00 will hit a lot of people very hard. There will be a lot of parked cars at home on the weekends. Five dollars will kill the economy and nobody will drive.
I haven’t checked the restaurants in my neighborhood at night lately. I know for a while there were still a lot of people going. During the weekend day there are less dining now.
That could all be true but there were so many other factors as well, the key one being people idiodically putting themsevles into debt and not paying it off combined with banks preying on said idiots. That was a factor in the more recent recessions; it was not simply a matter of gas going up.
I dont deny that if things keep going the way they are going that economic times will be very challenging for a lot of people. The issue is if people can have some inkling of personal responsibility and if we can get adults in charge of the white house who see that 1 we do in fact have other energy sources and 2 lets use them for G-d’s sake.