Joe Six Pack doesn't cash his paycheck and run out and buy gold ingots, but he does buy fuel. The more he pays for fuel, the less he can spend at Wal-Mart.
None. Risinging oil DOES NOT equal rising gas anymore. It did in 2003-06 to a small degree but not anymore. Oil could rise to 150 in a few months and the dow would still keep on surging.
This statement proves to the world that you truly know nothing. To keep par with oil on refining cracks, every .42 increase in price of oil is a penny in gasoline. That is to just stay par. Refining margins are shit right now and have little room for any less. Gasoline crack is about $5 a barrel now, up from the 2.75 I observed a week or two ago. If oil spiked to $150, just to stay par with shitty margin gasoline would increase at least $1.26 a gallon. If you think that $4.25-$5.00 a gallon won't have any impact, you are retarded (don't worry, we already know you are).
That's how much people across Europe have been paying per gallon for decades and their economies and spending patterns are doing OK.
If they decide to gun the cracks higher it could. To keep par, a run to 120 would be 23.00 from here. 23.00/.42=.5476 added to current gasoline price. But they could take cracks up again to the higher levels that would net you a much higher price. Gasoline in Houston is around 2.85 right now, so 120 oil would give us a 3.40 a gallon price all being par. Remeber, the taxes are a flate rate, not a percentage so it is not a multiple when you run up.
Totally different system, they pay no more than we do for the most part, the diff in price is in taxes. We might not pay as much for gas, but we pay more in some other tax that they don't. Also, they don't drive around in SUV's like we do. They drive much more efficient vehicles than us. I find it like an economic experiment, to see just how high we can take energy prices before a crack in the dam opens up on the US macro picture. You can thank our wonderful leader of energy policy and his task force DICK Cheney.