On the heels of "Cash for Clunkers" comes "Cash for Appliances" - a program funded with $300 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The plan is straightforward - give taxpayers a rebate for upgrading to energy efficient equipment. Although funded with Federal money each state sets the rules for qualifying equipment, [...]
News reports of the last couple of weeks touted the financial troubles of Greece. As their debt to GDP ratio rises to historic and worrisome levels there's a real chance of default on sovereign debt. While pundits opine the implications on the global economic and political landscape one can't help but notice the similarities of [...]
Friends and clients alike love to tweak us at Apollo - calling us a shill for the Republicans. We suppose that's fair. After all we tend to side with the right on economic issues. Yet as we like to point out commonality or correlation doesn't necessarily equate to causation or certainty. But we digress... If [...]
President Obama captivated the nation with his message of Hope. He rode it to victory in the race for The White House. Unfortunately his Hope has been a failure. Unemployment remains at unpalatable levels, tax hikes are on the way, politically motivated rather than economically relevant policies await the economy and health care, etc. It's [...]
On November 5th The House passed The Worker, Homeownership and Business Assistance Act. A day earlier it cleared The Senate by a vote of 98 to 0. The proposed legislation now heads to President Obama where quick signature is expected. Among other things The Act extends the First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit through 04/30/10. The refundable [...]
Today The White House said it believed the $787 billion stimulus package (or the "Un-stimulating Stimulus" package as we dubbed it in our 2/16/09 analysis) saved or created 650,000 jobs. This "belief" is based upon review of state and local projects and activities paid for by the stimulus such as education funding, highway repairs and [...]