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Philadelphia applies retroactive lap dance tax at gentlemen’s clubs

"After failing to institute hikes on soda and cigarettes, Philadelphia officials have reportedly slipped a lap dance tax under the radar. Attorney George Bochetto, who represents Club Risque and Cheerleaders, said the move is 'financial desperation' and part of an effort by the city to tax the same thing twice. According to appeal petitions, Cheerleaders owes $486,482 and Club Risque owes $320,538. The city audited the lap dance encounters then 'issued an assessment going back five years,' Bochetto said, plus interest and penalties. 'It’s over the top,' he told the newspaper. 'Unbelievable.'" Continue reading →

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Obama Calls Income Gap ‘Wrong’ — After Widening It

"The Census Bureau's official measure of income inequality — called the Gini index — shows similar results. During the Bush years, the index was flat overall — finishing in 2008 exactly where it started in 2001. It's gone up each year since Obama has been president and now stands at all-time highs. It's worth underscoring that the growing income gap under Obama isn't the result of the rich getting fabulously richer. Nor is it any sort of indictment of 'trickle down' economics. Instead, it is the direct result of Obama's historically weak economic recovery, which has left the rest of the country falling behind while the wealthy have managed to make gains." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingObama Calls Income Gap ‘Wrong’ — After Widening It

With Three Weeks to Go, Nobody Knows What ObamaCare Will Cost.

"So far, 17 states have issued estimates. The exchanges are supposed to be ready for business on October 1. Coverage begins on January 1. Where are the missing 33 exchanges? The federal government must run them. The federal government is staying mute. With three weeks to go, there is no real understanding of what the costs will be for most premium payers. This is going to be an administrative disaster. It is a programming disaster. It is going to prove to millions of voters that the federal government does not know what it is doing. This will become evident on October 1, the day the new fiscal year begins." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWith Three Weeks to Go, Nobody Knows What ObamaCare Will Cost.

More Bad Consequences from Obamacare

"I am an insurance agent for the nation's largest multiple line insurance company. There are over 17,000 of us, all independent contractors with our own employees, who, like us, are not employed by the insurance company. On September 3rd, the company announced that it would terminate all Group Medical health insurance that our employees (who work for us, not the company) participate in, effective January 1st, 2014, citing the Affordable Care Act and its restrictive underwriting requirements." Continue reading →

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IRS Rule Leads Restaurants to Rethink Automatic Tips

"An updated tax rule is causing restaurants to rethink the practice of adding automatic tips to the tabs of large parties. Starting in January, the Internal Revenue Service will begin classifying those automatic gratuities as service charges—which it treats as regular wages, subject to payroll tax withholding—instead of tips, which restaurants leave up to the employees to report as income. The change would mean more paperwork and added costs for the restaurants—and a potential financial hit for waiters and waitresses who live on their tips but don't always report them fully." Continue reading →

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Jeffrey Tucker: How to Fake a Fast Food Strike

"There’s every indication that people outside the restaurants protesting didn’t actually work for the place they were protesting. It was a classic 'rent-a-mob' situation, and the rent was being paid by political activists whose agenda has nothing to do with helping the average burger flipper. These were mostly media stunts cooked up by the Service Employees International Union, which bused in these so-called workers as a fulfillment of a little charade and subsequent media blitz. The SEIU coordinates these protests with various professional worker groups and in conjunction with the press to make the biggest possible splash." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJeffrey Tucker: How to Fake a Fast Food Strike

Can We Pay a Minimum Wage That Makes Everyone Rich?

"More people -- an increase in the supply of labor -- want to work at McDonald’s at a rate of $15 an hour than $7.25. That leads to an influx of workers into the labor force and higher unemployment as new entrants fail to find a job. The road to a higher-paying job goes through education, training for the jobs of tomorrow, and incentives such as the earned income tax credit, not through the imposition of a floor on wages. So the next time someone tells you that the U.S. needs to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, ask him what’s so special about $15. Why not raise it to $50, or $100, and make everyone rich?" Continue reading →

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McDonald’s Dollar Menu Is About To Become “The Dollar Menu & More”

"McDonald's Corp. says it has been testing higher priced versions of its famous value menu. The Dollar Menu & More that was tested has three price points -$1, $2 and $5 or 'shareable' items such as 20-piece McNuggets. Another version that was tested has prices of $1, $1.79 and $4.99. Earlier this year, Wendy’s revamped its 99-cent menu to a 'Right Price Right Size' menu, with prices ranging up to around $2. Sure looks like signs of price inflation, not deflation, to me." Continue reading →

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When It Comes To Healthcare, Paul Krugman Is Wrong 100% Of The Time

"In a recent New York Times column Krugman pronounced Obamacare a success before it has even been tried. Why? Because the premiums to be charged in California health insurance exchange are apparently lower than what the experts thought they would be. Aah… let’s see… Everybody thought health insurance premiums would be 100% higher. In fact, they are only 60% higher… Hooray… Break out the champagne! I’ll come back to these price comparisons in a minute. For the moment, I would ask: What kind of an economist would celebrate an expected price decline without asking what happened to quantity or quality? This is an Econ 101 mistake." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWhen It Comes To Healthcare, Paul Krugman Is Wrong 100% Of The Time

Stolen Public School Textbooks Went Unnoticed for Five Years.

"A Long Beach book buyer has been accussed of stealing thousands of new and used textbooks from four school districts in a massive scheme that involved 12 other people, including two librarians, a campus supervisor and a former warehouse manager. During a two-year period beginning in May 2008, Frederick allegedly paid more than $200,000 in bribes — from $600 to $47,000 per person — for school employees to steal textbooks in literature and language arts, economics, physics, anatomy and physiology." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingStolen Public School Textbooks Went Unnoticed for Five Years.