its herd mentality and your fear is an astute observation of that mentality. you know human nature, we can't deny it. even if oil stayed at $150 a barrel indefinitely, cost of living would adjust up to meet it and we would see people forget the "high" price of oil and continue on their merry way, we are in a commodity/inflation cycle and the only way to get out of it is to have a strong deflationary period that significantly removes credit from the system.