Firstly, the UK economy, despite the Chancellors proud claims, is not in exactly the best of shapes but in the US, the Government is technically, if not practically bankrupt. By this I mean fiscally and this is not meant as some value moral judgement on the standing of George W and the rest of the White House.
It is a fact that the US Government has an overall National Debt of in excess of $8 trillion dollars.
Secondly, the United States has become a country where almost anyone despite their financial background or credit record can get a line of credit.
Now in sound economic times this is fine and without these sorts of arrangements whole economies would disappear over night but it seems to be getting slightly silly at the moment with bankruptcies and bankrupts getting younger and younger as the months go by.
It used to be that credit was reserved for the privileged few and though I wouldn't want to go back to the days of the late 19th or early 20TH Centuries it would appear that more and more Americans (and us Brits too it would appear) are relying more and more on ?the old plastic? sitting in our wallets!
No longer do we save what we earn and again not to countenance a return to the days of prudence and thrift whereby nothing was bought until you could go in with the cash, this ?live for today and hope for a better tomorrow? ethic could be bringing more problems than we reckon.
One of my worries about the economy is the absence of real, meaningful and independently verifiable statistics. If we trace back through the history of the Federal Reserve, we can see that it has continually devalued the currency by expanding the money supply. This practice is still in use but the problem we have at the moment is that since they stopped reporting the M3 Money supply numbers, no one knows exactly how and what they are doing.
If you check carefully and read between the lines of the financial press it would seem that most foreign nationals are looking for ways to withdraw from US Currency holdings into something more stable.
As an aside of how volatile things are the moment, anyone who has any experience of dealing online in eCommerce would be well advised to check out how expensive their transactions are at the moment. For example, anyone outside of the US who has a web site that is getting any form of advertising revenue via Google's Adsense Programme at present has suffered a real time drop of revenue of about 3% in the last month or so.
This is not down to anything that is going on at Google. Just over a month ago the exchange rate between the dollar and sterling was approximately 1.80 / 1.81 dollars to every UK pound. Last weekend most online transactions and exchanges were looking at a rate 1.865 dollars to the pound.
Great if you want to buy fixed price items that were calculated in dollars but a real downer if your ad revenue was fixed in dollars.
Lastly, and this is the point that I can't reconcile. The US Government has an organisation called the Government Accountability Office, this organisation is warning of impending economic disaster. The Secretary to the Treasury, Hank Paulson has now increased the frequency of the President's Working Group in Financial Markets to meetings of every six weeks; this outfit is known informally as the ?Plunge Protection Team?.
Now the question I have is that would they be doing these this if things were that well?
Now before any readers accuse me of some form of ?jingoistic US Bashing? on the part of a ?lippy opinionated Brit? let me state right here and now that things are actually far from ?rosy this side of the pond? either but that is the subject of part two of this series of commentaries.
With gas prices raising the roof, there are some devices and modifications you can implement that will improve your fuel economy and increase your gas mileage. Some of the devices that claim to improve fuel economy on the market work great, and others are flat out scams. I'm going to show you some of the most popular offerings and tell you which work and which are a waste of money.
The Electric Supercharger (Fail)
The electric supercharger is designed behind the idea of forced induction modifications such as belt driven superchargers or the popular turbocharger which is powered using exhaust flow. While the idea is great in theory, I have yet to see one with a motor capable of pushing air near as fast as the engine is already consuming it. In other words, these tend to actually SLOW down the flow of air into the engine which can not only cause worse fuel economy, it can also damage your engine by causing a rich fuel to air ratio! Dyno tests on a 1998 S-10 V6 indicated a 7hp LOSS and an average loss of 3mpg.
Vortex Generators (Poor)
Here is a product which I have actually had marginal success with. The "Turbonator" and similar knock-off products basically cause a spinning motion in your air intake hose, which in most cases allows the air to travel faster to the intake manifold. They are easy to install, and they do work to a certain degree, but in my tests I've noticed a maximum increase of 3 horsepower and no noticeable difference in gas mileage on average, which is far under the projected results. Because it's so quick and easy to install, I tested this on 5 different vehicles with similar results from each.
Performance Chips (Good)
There are several Performance Chips available which can not only add horsepower to your vehicle, but also improve gas mileage. These work best with high performance gasoline engines and diesel engines. I have nothing bad to say about the performance chips, other than that they can be quite pricey and generally will require installation and dyno-tuning by a professional performance shop, which itself can be quite pricey. That being said, they DO work. Horsepower increase is the most noticeable with these, but they average around 3-5mpg increase.
Magnetic Fuel Conditioners (Fail)
These inexpensive devices can be had for around $10, and will do absolutely nothing for your gas mileage. You'd be much better off putting that $10 into your gas tank. This is an extremely tiny gadget that you basically zip-tie to your fuel line and you should magically get better fuel efficiency. The idea is that perfectly placed neodymium magnets will align the fuel molecules, and "supercharge" or "ionize" them. Scientifically speaking, that makes no sense! Feel free to try if you're curious, but these get a thumbs down from Bruce!
Mass Air Flow Module (Fail)
There's not really a common name for these, but they are usually a very small box with a couple wires available on various spots on the net for $5-$15. The basic idea is that you will plug this into your Mass Airflow (MAF) sensor or Intake Air Temperature (IAT) sensor, and it will fool your cars computer into thinking that the air coming into the engine is colder than it actually is. This is done using nothing but a resistor that you can buy at Radio Shack for less than a dollar, and that's it! It DOES work in the sense that it fools your computer, but it doesn't improve gas mileage OR power output from widespread testing. Don't fall for this one like my buddy did!
Hydrogen Cells/Water Cells (Excellent)
Why Excellent? Most people are reporting results of 20-45% increases in fuel efficiency. These work by splitting water into "HHO Gas" which is basically Hydrogen and Oxygen separated from each other. The only drawback is that there aren't really any production units available. Most HHO enthusiasts built their own setups. Fortunately it's not terribly complicated and it can be done at a fairly reasonable cost. There are some great plans available that show you exactly how to set this up for your car. I've also personally tested this setup with great results.
This is one of the few devices that improve fuel economy on a easily measurable level.
Both Stephenmorgan & Bruce Brennan are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Stephenmorgan has sinced written about articles on various topics from Information Technology, Home Improvement and BMW. Stephen Morgan is is the principle Editor for and also. Stephenmorgan's top article generates over 550000 views. to your Favourites.
Bruce Brennan has sinced written about articles on various topics from Finances, Cars. For on my Trans-am and other devices that improve fuel economy, you can check out. Bruce Brennan's top article generates over 1600 views. to your Favourites.