Could Bin Laden death pivot the economy?

Perusing Politico today and came across this:

“Economists and money managers see bin Laden’s death as a potential psychological pivot point away from the “Lost Decade” of low confidence and recession ushered in by the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/54183.html

This seems almost nonsensical - a man we hunted for 10 years and spent probably a trillion dollars fighting in Afghanistan ostensibly because of his actions, that his death could mark a psychological turning point in the American economy?

I mean, the economy is psychological.  The return of consumer spending beginning in let’s say the second quarter of 2009 and continuing today was based largely on people’s confidence that everything would turn out okay.  After all the housing picture has mostly worsened, and the jobs picture, while past its bottom, is not very pretty.  Credit card rates are still high and loan standards are still stringent.  But the consumer confidence numbers continue to climb.

Perhaps this will give them a further boost.  But we’ve got to do something about the price of gas.  It cost me $74 to fill up my car today and I remember when gas prices bottomed a few years ago it was down to like $40.  So not quite double but a huge increase.  I will admit that gas prices are not the talk of the town the way they were in 2008.  Because of that shock, people are less fazed by this round of price increases.  But how long can that last if the trajectory keeps going?  We’re not even into the ‘summer driving season’ yet.

Not that politicians can affect gas prices, not really, but if the current administration wants to really calm people down it will find some way to get the price of a gallon of gas back to $3.