wilson96   Economy, Politics, and More…

With the rising cost of gas prices and no end in sight everyone wants to save as much money at the gas pump as they possibly can.
Do you remember when you could fill your tank for 10 BUCKS or less? Who do the oil companies think they’re conning?
You and I can’t control the price of gas but by following the current and up-to-date know-how of fuel economy, the tips and tricks, the truth . . .and not the old myths you can quickly and easily start saving significantly on your gas bill.
There is a lot of expert advice available which you can implement instantly so you can start saving money today. Here are some little known tips and tricks you can try out.
1. Paying for your gas the smart way
One of the ways that you can save money at the gas pump is by using a gasoline credit card. When you have a gas card you’ll be able to get 5 or 10 percent rebate back on the purchase of your gas. This can amount to as much as $75 to $300 each year. Many gasoline companies are joining up with other retailers to give you numerous savings at the gas pump.
2. Buy your gas in the morning or evening
Gasoline becomes denser in colder temperatures. Gas pumps are set to measure the volume of the fuel that you pump and not the density. This means that if you fill up your gas tank in the cooler morning temperatures, or in the colder evening hours, that you’ll be getting better gas price economy. Try to fill up your gas tank later in the evening to avoid the rush of day hours.
The next 2 tips will be surprising to you I’m sure.
3. Buy gas from a busy station
Try to buy your gas from a gas station that is consistently busy and therefore has its underground tanks filled on a regular basis. Gas stations that are slow will have gas that has been sitting in underground tanks for longer periods of time, leading to gas contamination. This contamination can mean that the gas you are purchasing is less powerful than fresh gas and will decrease your fuel economy.
4. Turn the nozzle
When you have finished filling up your gas tank try turning the nozzle of the hose a full 180 degrees. This will drain a bit more gas into your tank; in some cases up to an entire half cup that would otherwise be a bonus to the next gas customer. That half cup each time adds up to a lot over the year!
These are just some of the great ways to save on gas!

As the economy slows down, everybody is looking for some extra ways to save a few bucks here and there.  Sometimes it seems like you are always trying to save but just need some extra ideas to help you keep that last buck in your pocket.  Here are 10 ways you can save money in a slowing economy:

Keep your expenses low and maximize your savings account, and you should be able to whether the storm.

More than 2000 innocent civilians have been killed in the last 24 hours, local aid workers, saying. The rescue workers had counted more than 1200 bodies. Many of the dead were “found in bunkers and inside the tarpaulin tents,” it said. A government doctor, V. Shanmugarajah, who works in the area still under rebel control told the BBC that 378 bodies and 1122 wounded had been brought to a makeshift hospital Sunday.

2/6/10 An extremely unbalanced Fox News panel consisting of one liberal, four conservatives and an obviously conservative-leaning host could not explain why, if tax cuts are so important to the economy, the economy and the job market tanked in the wake of George W. Bush’s tax cuts.

If you want the keys to her heart, Obama Girl has a few requirements… And learn more at AmericasGreenestcampus.com http www.twitter.com Starring: Amber Lee Ettinger, Jake Huritz, and Ngo (getingo.com) Song performed by Leah Kauffman and Akilles LYRICS: I need you to recycle If you want the keys to my heart Do you really want to get with me You gotta know how to live smart My love is sustainable, not just biodegradable I wanna ride your bicycle Reduce, re-use and recycle Youre being romantic with me Guess whats too gigantic for me? Its your carbon footprint boyy (CHORUS) And if you wanna be with me Save your energy, Save your energy Youre looking good but you drive an H3. Save your energy Save your energy Youre using plastic for your groceries Save your energy Save your energy You should act like Ed Begley Save your energy Save it all for me (RAP) Hey Girl whats these signs that you sending me Ive been trying to save the world conserving all my energy We could ride in my hybrid fuel efficiency Solo-powered sunroof blowin in the windy breeze Baby I re-use, I recycle Low flow shower heads too if you like, boo Anything I use is biodegradable Why you still saving all your love, what you waiting for? (CHORUS) And if you wanna be with me Save your energy, Save your energy Walking to work is so d*mn sexy Save your energy Save your energy Obama can be proud of you and me Save your energy Save your energy I’m turned on by stuff unplugged for me Save your energy Save your energy …

The easy availability of credit has created what Robert Manning calls our Credit Card Nation, where we are encouraged to shop until we drop. In the aftermath of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, President Bush made that point shamelessly when he told the American people that the best way to help in that traumatic period was to go shopping again. He knew, even if most Americans didn’t, that it is their non-stop consumption that drives the economy. Without it, I guess, the terrorists could have won.
“In fact,” Robert Manning writes in his seminal book on credit cards, “with the ascendance of the post-industrial economy, bank credit cards have become an essential technological and financial tool for commercial transactions as well as an increasingly important macro-economic tool for U.S. Policy-makers.”
Shopping is our real national pastime, but it comes, as he warns, at a price that is not advertised in the malls:The idyllic wonderland of consumer credit too often belies a reality of unknown sacrifices and enduring debt… the credit card industry is playing a crucial role in transforming American consumer attitudes. The promotion of “immediate gratification” ruptures the cognitive connection between earnings/saving and credit/debt that has traditionally shaped consumer behavior. It is this “cognitive disconnect,” with its siren song “Buy, buy, buy. It could be free, free, free” that constitutes the cornerstone of the Credit Card Nation.
And so it is not surprising that holidays are used or created as national events to spur consumption. They have become rituals of shopping. None is as important as the first day after Thanksgiving, itself a day set aside for overindulgence at the kitchen table. That day now has a name, Black Friday, so called because it is supposed to be the day when the whole retail sector goes into the black financially. (This may not have been such a wise use of language since the Wall Street crash of l929, ushering in the Great Depression, started on a “Black Thursday.”)
After months of financial volatility, Black Friday of 2007 was seen as a make-or-break event. Would it send a cathartic and upbeat signal that the economy was back? Shoppers had been tasked to launch the Holiday season with a big bang.
On Wall Street, buyers jumped the gun, sending prices higher with their hopes. AP reported, stocks rebounded as investors engaged in a bit of Black Friday bargain hunting and looked for signs of how well retailers might fare during the holiday shopping season. The market was voting its own money.
In the malls, preparations had been made for five months with advertising dollars set aside for promoting sales and deep discounts to lure the shoppers who had almost been boycotting the stores in September and October. Ingenious plans for opening earlier and staging “midnight madness” sales to trigger a stampede were put in place.
The hype machine went into overdrive with TV ads having the expected effect of getting TV News, especially in local markets, actively building anticipation.
I was watching local news stories in Boston, featuring perky local news “correspondents” who were stirring a buying frenzy with upbeat reports on manic consumers waiting feverishly to rush into malls the night before. It was, in the words of Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping, a “shopopocalyse.” His crusade against out-of-control consumption is pictured in the new film What Would Jesus Buy?
This highly relevant film was not on TV, of course, because our media is deeply complicit in promoting/encouraging mindless consumerism through newspapers, commercials, and on newscasts.
This is a well-practiced formula mirroring TV’s promotion of the war in Iraq, as the line between selling and telling disappears. Media outlets are amply rewarded with endless ad revenues hyping all the discounted goodies you can get, with the Boston Globe packing no less than 43 advertising/sales supplements (down from 47 a year ago) into a paper that had wall-to-wall Macy’s ads, including some offering $10 coupons to bribe you into the stores. Marketing like this is what the media does best.
The only negative note was the fear among some that toys might be unsafe because of lead or other dangers. Some 26 million toys, most made in China, had been recalled in 2007, a sign that the regulators were asleep on this front in the economic wars as they were on Wall Street.
The real danger may not be lead in the toys but another type of lead – in our heads. It’s that “lead” that leads to denial on the part of millions that we can go on with our addictive, well-cultivated crazed consumption habits.
Bill Bowles writes about this on his CNI Blog:The problem is that many of us have been force-fed with a diet of nothing but passive, uncritical consumptionism, indeed, we are addicted to the stuff; breaking such powerful habits is what this is all about; it’s about getting people to think critically again about what’s going on and why and what, if anything, we can do about it.
Bowles also ties this cultural affliction, sometimes known as affluenza, back to our dependence on a media system that won’t really allow other voices to be heard.It would be an understatement to say that the world has changed almost beyond recognition in the past two decades, we appear to have re-entered the age of the dinosaur, gigantic creatures stomping across the planet, “guided” by pea-sized brains. So … we have increasing concentrations of powerful media – media that is actually an entire raft of processes critical to the survival of capitalism – either in the hands of vast corporations or the state (which in any case is now openly in bed with the big corporations)…
Were most media outlets connecting any dots between the annual shopathon and the “severe recession” that many economists are forecasting? Were there any warnings to the public to save their rapidly inflating money for the expected hard times? Was there any explanation of how prices have sharply risen and, thus, the discounts – often “teaser” rates just like the ones offered loan victims – are really not all they are cracked up to be?
No way.
What about the larger trends? Yes, there has been reporting on how bad things are – but this reality was largely NOT depicted in the “shop now, be happy” coverage. This euphoria was deliberate and deceptive. The Boston Globe did run a story in the B Section where the business news is buried. At the very end of the AP report (not theirs) you read this:Last year, retailers had a good start during the Thanksgiving weekend, but many stores struggled in December and a shopping surge just before and after Christmas wasn’t enough to make up for lost sales. This year, analysts expect sales gains to be the weakest in five years. Washington-based National Retail Federation predicted that total holiday sales would be up 4 percent for the combined November and December period, the slowest growth since a 1.3 percent rise in 2002.
Holiday sales rose 4.6 percent in 2006 and growth has averaged 4.8 percent over the last decade.
Where were the stories alerting us to this coming calamity on the front pages? They weren’t there. It is not in their interest to carry them, clearly a big No No. It gets worse. MTV pointedly rejected an ad from the Cultural Jammers Network urging a Buy Nothing Day. Commented one blogger, “The station that markets itself as the voice of hip youth has censored the burping pig.”
But why? Their advertising standards representative, Elisa Billis, said, “The spot goes further than we are willing to accept on our channels.” Too radical for self-styled “hip” MTV, which routinely carries military recruiting ads with no qualms.
The Boston Globe did carry a cartoon lampooning local sports mania in a town with winning teams. In its last panel, set in a mortgage office, a fan is being told he will be able to pay off his Red Sox/Celtics/Patriots tickets in just a few decades.
Many of the shoppers this season are charging it even though all the credit card companies have jacked up rates, driving the real cost of shopping higher, and even though credit balances are at an all-time high. The companies are just waiting for them. The day after Christmas, VISA will report on how much business was done. In years past, they called it “disappointing.”
And then in January, the returns – consumers bringing back purchases and gifts – will start as the bills come due. Experts – including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers – are warning that the credit card system itself may be the next to fall.
Writes economist Robert Samuelson:”The specter of the subprime debacle is that it’s just a start. Huge amounts of auto loans, credit-card debt, commercial mortgages and equipment leases have also been securitized. If similar problems emerged, it would shake confidence in the securitization model and, by magnifying investors’ losses, threaten to turn the credit crunch from a slogan into a reality. A broader crisis, though a long shot, can’t be excluded.
Thanksgiving this year fell on the anniversary of the John F. Kennedy assassination. The New York Times predictably marked the event with one more op-ed article – one in a long line – assuring us that there was no conspiracy. (Even as 80% of the public continues to believe that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone.) In some ways obsessive debt-creating consumption patterns are a form of self-assassination as a nation of shoppers shoots holes in their financial futures.
While they discredit suggestions of a past conspiracy, they seem to be ignoring a current one. That involves the steady decline of our economy, thanks to illegal practices through white-collar predatory lenders backed by our biggest banks and hedge funds, as well as the inability of regulators to regulate, and a complicit media to blow the whistle, which caused a multi-billion dollar economic crime that is still in progress.
So what happened? Was the day the big success we were told it would be by the media’s relentless upbeat coverage? In a culture where perception itself is carefully managed, Black Friday didn’t appear to be dark at all. On Friday night, after a day of boosterism disguised as journalism, retailers and media promoters were, like President Bush in Iraq, proclaiming victory – “mission accomplished.”
Not so fast.
Yes, Black Friday showed better results than expected, but the retail industry afterward said it still expected a weak Christmas. Remember, the stores were open longer than ever and the advertising/ hype was more pervasive. Also. the discounting was deeper and the bargains more extensive. We know that the sales were up, but what about the returns and expected credit card defaults?
The New York Times sent reporters into the stores and found “desperation rather than celebration.” By Monday, Wall Street was glum, according to Fox News: “So much for a ‘Black Friday’ bounce for Wall Street. Instead, negative market sentiment and another ugly day for financial stocks sent the Dow plunging 237 points lower.”

Government agencies urged to save money by banding together, buying in bulk
Government purchasing officials said Wednesday that they will push agencies to buy goods such as furniture and office supplies as if they were shopping at warehouse retailers Costco and Sam’s Club. Government – Home – Business – Homemaking – Frugality

Read more on Washington Post

One and a half hours is my usual commute time to my current work place. It takes forty-five miles to get there. During winter storm it takes much, much longer… I certainly have enough time to listen to the Boston Public Radio (WBUR station), and my thoughts usually start with “WHY are we all sitting here?”, slowly moving, wasting fuel, and finally contributing our share to the Global Warming… Good Morning (or Good Night) America on Wheels!

WBUR is not for the weak of heart. Domestic topics range from how big is a golden parachute for a CEO who failed to manage a bank or corporation (usually an eight digit number), to sliding dollar and looming recession … All symptoms, all the information that could drive us crazy and push us out of our driver seats… Yet, I listen to my favorite radio station with great pride that we are still driving and going to our jobs to keep America moving …

Our destination is clearly articulated. The verdict for all of us is “guilty”; we are guilty of not spending enough or not saving enough and, it seems as if no matter what we do “We are doomed!”. But my Russian common sense forged in trenches of communism and hardened by capitalism is refusing to give up. There is a proverb from my old days “Saving life of a drowning man is the business of that drowning man!” Since I cannot separate myself from the rest of us sliding in to recession, I find myself thinking how to stop that. I have enough time; say a couple of weeks to find a solution. Otherwise, this contract with the bank will be the last of what I could get from this economy. Well, unemployment is still guaranteed, but it will not cover all my recent acquisitions and multiplying loans (Note: nobody can blame me for not spending enough to keep our economy running; I am a patriot after all!).

I am a deeply technical person. I am thinking in technical terms, and always trying to crunch through the numbers. How many of us are commuting every day? In fact, an overwhelming majority of people between 20 and 60 years old do, roughly a half of US population of 300 million. The analysis [1] gives us a number of 220 million. What is the average commute? It is approximately 16 miles one way. Expecting 20 miles per gallon, we consume about 300 million gallons of gasoline for the nation’s one working day commute. It takes up nearly 75% of the total US gasoline consumption according to at least two sources [2, 3]. These numbers represent quite rough estimate, and relate to gasoline only (there are also kerosene and diesel fuels), but we do not need exact numbers. It answers the question of who consumes most of the gasoline. We do! And we do that by commuting. Subsequently, commuting is a source of increasing fuel demand and pricing, air pollution, traffic creation, cause of political instabilities and intrigues around the world, etc. This list can go on and on for quite some time.

So what if we stay at home and work remotely (telecommute)… First question is how many people are doing that, and for how many days per week? Google search for “telecommuting in US 2006″ brings up pretty diverse information. The estimate ranges from 12 millions full time in 2006 (5.4% of working population) to more realistic 2% full time and 9% part time [5]. I observe the latter number of 2% in the bank department that I’m working for.

Well, we are not making much progress in telecommuting field. Good old UK was doing much better back in 2002 with telecommuting rate of 7.4% [6]. Another question is what is the percentage of workers who can telecommute without negatively impacting the business process? I did not try Google to find an answer to such a sophisticated question. What I see from my personal experience of IT professional, at least 50% of office work can be done at home. At my consulting job, I see some of my colleagues once in two weeks, if I walk by. Otherwise, I do my work glued to my computer monitor, exchanging information via email and internal chat system. We do remote conferencing and project management. I do it in the same way as many of you do every day.

I would like to set the following goal “Everybody who can stay at home and do his or her job remotely should do that!” As we transition more and more toward “service” economy, we have a chance to eventually move everybody out of the main office, or at least 90% of us sitting in a computerized cage and laying golden eggs by processing information.

Both government and business establishment generally agree that telecommuting is a good thing. That is all. The mutual agreement is that a good thing is good. Nothing more, nothing less. There hasn’t been a real concerted push toward telecommuting. Not even close.

Here is my proposal on how to move things forward. As all of my proposals, it is real, and it is doable. First of all, we need a technology to support telecommuting. The most of it is already in place. Internet infrastructure (many thanks to Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore) is available across most of the US. Computers are really inexpensive (about $600 for a telecommuting-ready system). There is IPSec VPN, and even better SSL VPN to connect to the main office. We might need an integrated solution out-of-the-box, which would be easy to install as in “VPN plug-and-play”. However, I would like to stress that we already have all the necessary ingredients to get started.

Secondary, we need to encourage all the US businesses to implement telecommuting as a solution as soon as possible. Here is the trick. I am proposing for US Congress to pass a legislation requiring all employers to pay for their employees commuting fuel expenses. That is it – an average of $1,200 per employee per year. I name it “Commuter Reimbursement” (CR).

Logically, why should WE pay for our commute in the first place? Commute is often not an important consideration when businesses choose their location. There is neither government nor business supported program for decreasing commute, thus saving OUR money. They simply do not have a strong incentive to care. We, commuters, do, and Global Warming and air pollution is a big concern as well.

I am not buying an argument that $1,200 will be an unbearable burden to US businesses. The credit is on the order of annual salary raise. Median income per US household member [7] is about $27,000, thus CR represents only 4.4% of it. After all, according to David C. Johnston “Free Lunch” [8], US corporate management owes us the salary rise since mid 70s, so please, be kind and give it us once in 30 years, thus indicating your participation in our mutual struggle with the rising fuel cost and inflation, Global Warming, pollution, you name it.

There is a good indication that CR will work. We all know how business management likes to save pennies (moving the bounty to golden parachutes), this price tag will work very well to encourage progress; I mean moving to real telecommuting with the goal of getting 30% or more of the US workforce working remotely.

How do we implement CR? I can think of several ways, but let’s leave it to the US Congress to figure it out. I got an idea, and they need to do their share as well. Hopefully, they will not invent a way to make it completely useless, so we don’t end up paying our employers for our commute!

How long would it take to implement? Considering that almost everybody is winning (see below), I would optimistically expect CR Law passing within one year. Thus, at the end of the second year we can expect a moderate reduction in commuting at 30%, with the year average of 15%. The price for the oil will drop possibly returning to $30 per barrel. The gasoline price will return gradually to $1.50 per a gallon (average for this year of $2,25). Thus, average CR for the second year will be around $750. For the third year we can expect it dropping even more to approximately $400, given that number of commuters stays the same. However, we should expect it to be slowly decreasing. As you see here, there is market self-regulation – initial CR of $1,200 should be dropping, and CR and the price of the telecommuting installation will regulate the number of telecommuters. This is a normal market regulation when we have enough resources, not the extreme we have now when any speculation fuels the market and drives price up continuously.

Let’s see who will be the winners. Of course, we, commuters, will win as well as all the people in the US and around the world. Businesses will make CR money back very soon (decreasing office leasing expenses), or significantly decrease the payment. I would expect at least 30% reduction in traffic (no traffic jams any more), and 30% less total US consumption of gasoline. That would be out real contribution to solving the Global Warming problem.

All the US population will win saving money, and our economy will bloom again.

US global interests will also be a big winner. Hugo Chaves (small but continuing headache) will lose as Venezuela cannot survive with less than $60 per a barrel, and outgoing Russia’s President Mr. Putin will lose a lot of his power as well. Putin has been busy helping Russia flex muscles against the West in the last few years, mostly by leveraging increasing Russia’s oil revenues. No more this sly Russian former spy and dictator will have funds to develop new missiles and nuclear submarines. Russia economic success of last few years had been squarely based on high oil price. If it drops, Russia’s government ambitions of Great Resurrected Russia will deflate as quickly as they did during USSR collapse.

Who else will loose? Of course, oil companies which were too slow to embrace alternative energy. Global Islamic terrorist network will suffer money shortage, as Middle East tycoons loose a substantial part of oil revenues. Somehow, I don’t think our nation will shed too many tears for them.

Does US Government have enough guts to move forward with my telecommuting incentive plan (i.e. legislating a $1,200 “Commute Reimbursement” plan)? Possibly not, if we are just talking about out commute problems and Global Warming; but it might change to “yes” considering that this plan can resolve its political problems as well.

Some people would say that the proposed solution is a temporarily one. Yes, but we need it now, we need to start cutting out fuel consumption now, otherwise WBUR and all the economy doomsday experts are going to say “See, we told you, the recession is coming…And you did nothing to stop it…”.

Self-advertising: Does my idea intrigue you? I have a few more. Interested parties, please feel free to contact me mutin@rubos.com.

References:

1. Gary Langer. Poll: Traffic in the United States. Feb. 13, 2005. ABC News.

2. Clean Cities Program Saved US One Day’s Gas Consumption in 2006. Environment News Services. http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2007/2007-10-01-097.asp

3. How much gasoline does the United States consume in one year? http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question417.htm

4. Earn well, leave cheap. May 22, 2006. Les Christie, CNNMoney.com.

5. Most With Option to Telecommute Prefer to Drive. June 13, 2006. News Report.

6. Telework in the UK: Who’s doing it?

7. Houshold income in the United Stats. Wikipedia.

8. David C. Johnston. Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill). Dec. 2007.

Authors: Daniil M. Utin, MS, Mikhail A. Utin, Ph.D.

Copyright (c) Daniil M. Utin, Mikhail A. Utin, 2008

Contact information: Mikhail A. Utin, Email: mutin@rubos.com; Daniil M. Utin, dan@cidc.com

At the time of this writing, there is a game being played. And in my opinion, the game is called, “confronting the US oil crisis”. The major players are the car manufacturers, the government, maybe the EPA and have course the people being the unwitting spectators that are readily lured to the show.
And the game pieces are the fuel economy cars also known as hybrid cars.
I will begin by emphasizing the point that I don’t know everything there is to know about this so called “impending oil crisis”. And I’m not sure if there is anyone who knows everything there is to know about this impending oil crisis too. However, I am fairly certain that the hybrid cars wouldn’t be a prospective solution to the problem; not at least for a few more years.
One would notice a massive influx of hybrid cars on the roads today and yet, did nothing to help put a dent in the oil problems; but instead made a quandary with regards to car-pooling. As early as January 2005, hybrids car owners were allowed to use car pool lanes, even when driving alone. Given the fact that thousands of hybrid cars have been sold since 1999, some of the car pool lanes are becoming more congested than the regular traffic lanes they’re supposed to lighten.
According to a compiled report for the past eight years made by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the pervasive presence of the supposedly fuel economy cars have saved only a measly total of 5.5 million oil barrels. It’s a rather distressing contrast against the approximate 8.5 million barrels a day to power the present usage of the light, private vehicles. But even then, researchers are very optimistic with regards to fuel economy cars. They have concluded that for fuel economy cars to have an impact, they have to at least cover more than 50% of the car population in the United States. And given the growing sales of these fuel economy cars, it’s just a matter of time.
On a more personal note, can fuel economy cars help you cut back on gasoline consumption? Yes they could, depending on your driving habits. However, if you consider the initial cost of the hybrids, you may want to reconsider buying one. One of the biggest challenges of the fuel economy cars is that it takes so long to repay that extra expense of purchasing them. Even in the best-case scenario (as with one of the most popular hybrids, the Toyota Prius), five years time is already considered lucky. One could purchase a standard 4-cylinder Toyota for a much lower price and the fuel economy on these models are just outstanding. Again, this will all depend on you’re driving habits. Personally, being a city driver, I get excellent mileage with my four cylinder.
So what is your reasoning to purchase a fuel economy car? Is it for the environmental aspects? Whatever it may be, personally I wouldn’t purchase a hybrid car for purely economic reasons.

Driving StrategiesThe cheapest and easiest way to improve your fuel economy is to change how you drive your existing car.

Car MaintenanceIn addition to improving your driving strategies, use the following car maintenance tips to maximize your fuel economy:

Buying A New CarWhen considering purchasing a new car, remember that the miles per gallon estimates posted on new cars are always very optimistic. Those estimates are generated by operating the car in perfect driving conditions, as in 55 MPH on a windless day at sea level on flat ground with the windows rolled up and the air conditioner and radio off. Typically your actual miles per gallon will be two to five gallons less than the estimate.Go smaller! Technology has improved to the point where many smaller vehicles have high safety ratings and perform very well in adverse driving conditions. Remember that if you spend a little more on a smaller car with posi-traction as opposed to a bigger lunk with four-wheel drive, savings will be realized in improved fuel economy down the road. And you don’t have to put the thing in four-wheel drive, it will do so itself!Go hybrid if you can. Some very important factors to remember: hybrid and electric car technology is skyrocketing right now, so the vehicles that come out in five to ten years will show enormous improvements over the ones available today. If you have a lot of disposable income and buy a new car every three to five years anyway, go buy a hybrid today. If you are not that lucky, follow the tips above to maintain your current vehicle and tough it out until the car companies can bring to market all the technology in development right now.