I too have business interests that serve other businesses -we serve businesses who serve the consumer. The gas price is incredibly important in everything we do and in everything the consumer does or does not do, making it incredibly important to our direct customer businesses.
Five will kill the economy. I think the tipping point is really 3 to 3.50. I know conventional wisdom is that it is four. My point is, folks start to change their lives at 3 or 3.50 and by the time folks realize we are in heep big trouble, the price is usually 4.
I don’t think 5 could last because it is somewhat self correcting. Above 4, the demand would dry up and keep it from getting to 5 IMO. But anything above 3 is awful especially when we have the resources for it to be under 2.
Right now, the news reports are telling the sheep how good gas prices are for them. Beck played a montage of several reporters crediting high gas prices with saving lives. They were actually giving statistics.
Interestingly enough, where I work, our main bread and butter is big Pharma. Their coffers are still full and still spending like drunken sailors. (many times sending the marketing collateral out of the country for studies, trials, etc.) Without that, we'd 20% of the staff we do now.