The latest spike in the oil patch has a lot of Americans speculating on just how high the price of crude oil can go before it really starts to hurt the economic recovery. With West Texas crude oil now trading right at the $100 per barrel mark, this question certainly is appropriate to ask.

In my most recent digital audio broadcast, I addressed this question in detail. During the broadcast, I said that I believed that oil would need to go above $120 per barrel -- and remain there for more than a month -- before it would start to put a serious dent into the current recovery.

So far, we’ve only seen oil prices breach the $100 mark briefly. I actually think that this spike in oil essentially has served as an excuse for sellers to move out of winning equity positions. Having said that, I am not immune to the notion that oil prices could continue rising and, if they were to spike to $120, and remain there, we’d all start to feel crudely painful.