Six Months ago, I commented about the problems with the Economic Stimulus Package and how it would not provide any immediate benefit, be largely ineffective and create more long term costs than benefits.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics just released its latest employment situation report and showed that the economy lost nearly one-half million jobs [...]

Subsidy Could Harm Consumers and May Not Save Energy
 
President Obama has signed into a law a program to stimulate new car purchases and take old gas guzzlers off the road.  The program, referred to as Cash for Clunkers, would give new car buyers a rebate worth thousands per vehicle, when they trade in an old fuel [...]

Anne Kadet’s article discusses the high cost of computer printer ink and correctly points out that: 1) printer costs per ink can very from 2 cents per black and white page to 14 cents, depending on the inkjet printer; 2) most manufacturers provide insufficient information on ink costs per page, which leads consumers to buy [...]

On Tuesday, the American Consumer Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institue Co-hosted a Hill Briefing on recent activity on Financial oversight.  With the new administration and the changing economic environment, an expert panel discussed why the case for a federal systemic regulator was stronger than ever.

Readers:
Over the last month, we picked 5 major public policy issues and asked our readers to pick which of these issues were of most concern to them.  Here are the final results of our online survey in order of importance:

Economic Crisis (36%)
Energy Independence (27%)
War on Terrorism (12%)
Health Insurance reform (10%)
Global Warming (10%)
All other issues (5%)

 Please post your comments if [...]

Internet consumers continue to express high concerns about online threats such as viruses, spam, and identity theft, according to a survey by the American Consumer Institute (ACI), though the level of concern was somewhat lower than expressed in last year’s survey.
Topping the list, 63% of consumers saying they were “very concerned” with identity theft, followed [...]

The New York Times discusses our latest Consumer Calculator in its recent personal technology article.  The calculator allows consumers to rank computer printers based on their lifetime printing cost, and shows that ink costs far outweigh the cost of the printer itself.  However, printer manufacturers rarely disclose information on the cost of printing on either their [...]

The very organization entrusted to protect consumers against involvency, the Florida Insurance Commission, is leading the industry to solvency and leaving consumers wondering “who will pay their claims?”  The Tampa Bay Tribune quotes Steve Pociask of the Institute on Florida’s solvency problems, click here for the news.

Try this new consumer calculator!  It will estimate the cost of a new car, SUV, van or Truck, and it will estimate the fuel costs over a multi-year period.  Please et us know what you think and give us ideas for new calculators.