What gets me about Europe is that you would think the salaries are so much higher (than the US) to compensate for the cost-of-living. In general, it's not. For about the last year and a half, I have been looking at jobs in England. In the beginning, when I was first considering moving there for a year or two, I couldn't believe how high the rents were relative to the sizes of those tiny, tiny, tiny apartments. UGH!!! Then, I started looking into the prices of regular things like gas, groceries, fast food, taxi rides, theaters, etc.
It was shocking!!! But, I thought surely the salaries would be considerably higher.... nope. It's about the same.
Anyway, I don't think we in the US can just expect to do whatever they do in other countries, should our gas ever go up that high as a result of a catastrophic incident. I tend to agree with Fingers that this would really devastate our economy and cause a major shutdown or economic depression. These folks in countries that are paying close to $10 now are accustomed to it. It's a part of their lifestyle, and they budget accordingly. Here, it would be largely detrimental to the working class folks who would have to downsize considerably and would be a lot more susceptible to homelessness and/or extreme poverty since they will be tapping into their savings to make ends meet.
I think $10 gas anytime soon would be devastating to our economy.
