regime uncertainty

IRS To Extract $207 Billion From Small Businesses By Enforcing Obamacare

"The employer mandate is lucrative for the government. It is expected to bring in penalty payments of $207 billion over the next decade, according to projections by the Congressional Budget Office. Businesses will generally incur fines of around $2,000 per employee (excluding the first 30) if they do not offer qualifying coverage to nearly all of those who work an average of 30 or more hours a week. The penalty is activated if at least one employee then buys insurance on the health law’s marketplace and receives a subsidy for it. The per-employee fine increases each year, and can add up quickly: A company with 100 workers that ignored the law this year would owe a penalty of more than $158,000."

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James Bovard: Facebook/Russia farce shows lawmaker deviousness, demagoguery

"Many Americans would cheer federal muzzling. Almost half of millennials supported restricting freedom of speech on social media, according to a recent survey. Congressional threats have probably already done long-term damage to corporate spines. It would be naive to expect Facebook, Twitter, or other social media companies to take heroic stands in favor of free speech. But it would be even more naive to expect anything good to result from permitting politicians to decimate freedom in the name of democracy."

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Trump Makes First Step To Revoke Iran Nuclear Deal

"U.S. President Donald Trump dealt a blow to the Iran nuclear deal on Friday, as he announced that he would not certify that Iran is in compliance with the agreement. While the unravelling of the deal is neither automatic nor certain, Trump’s announcement will have clear implications for the agreement – and for U.S. diplomacy. Going forward, two key things to watch will be how Congress and international businesses will react to the Trump administration’s moves."

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Dark side of Ca. pot legalization: a bonanza of government jobs

"The state is on a hiring binge to fill what eventually will be hundreds of new government positions by 2019 intended to bring order to the legal pot economy, from keeping watch on what’s seeping into streams near cannabis grows to running background checks on storefront sellers who want government licenses. Thousands of additional jobs are expected to be added by local governments. Last January, just 11 full-time workers were part of what’s now known as the Bureau of Cannabis Control, the state’s chief regulatory agency overseeing the pot market. Now, it’s more than doubled, and by February the agency expects to have more than 100 staffers."

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Spain threatens Catalonia with five-day deadline to overturn vote

"Rajoy said Catalan authorities broke the law by holding the referendum and incited street protests to give an appearance of legitimacy to the vote. He did not refer to the violence with which police cracked down on voting day but said 'nobody can be proud of the image' Spain projected, adding the only ones to blame were the Catalan leaders."

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Trump to courts: Stop opposing my travel ban, because here’s another one

"If the administration succeeds in wiping the record clean, it will need to defend only Trump's latest ban, which followed a three-month review of immigration procedures. Keeping the lower court rulings on the books would give opponents more support for claims that the new ban exceeds the president's authority and discriminates against Muslims. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit had ruled that Trump lacked proof the earlier ban was needed, and the 4th Circuit appeals court said it discriminated based on religion."

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How Donald Trump’s travel ban has hit Iran’s tourism renaissance

"For visitors the lure is the culture and history of a sophisticated civilisation, with no fewer than 19 Unesco heritage sites, which had been inaccessible for decades when Iran was shunned as a pariah state. Now the country is also viewed as safe in comparison with other states offering similar attractions in the region – Syria, Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia, Libya – places which have become no-go areas due to the varying degrees of threats from terrorism or civil war. Mr Trump’s repeated threat to withdraw the US from the nuclear agreement, achieved through years of painstaking negotiations, is creating concern that Iran will be pushed back towards isolation."

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