Note that Europe pays the same market price for raw petroleum that America does, it just taxes the refined petrol and diesel (and uses far more of the latter) much higher.
This does have the effects of suppressing demand for fuel that you note, but the financial effect is that the money remains in-country and can be spent on other things.
Unless the US were to suddenly double its fuel taxes, a likelihood I estimate somewhere between nil and never, the only way US fuel prices would hit $9-$10/gallon would be for the cost of extracting oil to rise to that extent -- probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $200-300/bbl prices.
There you start running into the question of just what you're getting for your barrel of oil in terms of economic output. $GDP/BBL runs from a low of around $490 in India to nearly $2800/bbl in Sweden. It's around $1000, for most of Europe around $1500.
My thought is that there's a lot of marginal economic activity in China and India which will cease if the cost of oil doubles. Quite possibly elsewhere as well.
This does have the effects of suppressing demand for fuel that you note, but the financial effect is that the money remains in-country and can be spent on other things.
Unless the US were to suddenly double its fuel taxes, a likelihood I estimate somewhere between nil and never, the only way US fuel prices would hit $9-$10/gallon would be for the cost of extracting oil to rise to that extent -- probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $200-300/bbl prices.
There you start running into the question of just what you're getting for your barrel of oil in terms of economic output. $GDP/BBL runs from a low of around $490 in India to nearly $2800/bbl in Sweden. It's around $1000, for most of Europe around $1500.
My thought is that there's a lot of marginal economic activity in China and India which will cease if the cost of oil doubles. Quite possibly elsewhere as well.
Price matters, but so does cost.