QUOTE OF THE DAY
Daily Herald: Shift in unions raises questions about future
Once a mighty labor union town, Muncie now has more police officers and office workers in organized labor than welders and auto workers.
With the closing of Muncie’s last two big auto industry plants — and union strongholds — now several years back in the rear view mirror, can Muncie ever recover its footing as a labor-friendly town?
And should it?
Bloomberg: If Uber Is Killing Taxis, What Explains the Million-Dollar Medallions?
To hear angry hacks and enthusiastic Silicon Valley types tell it, Uber is killing the taxi industry. Apparently no one told the people who buy New York City taxi medallions.
This week, New York held an auction for individual yellow-cab medallions, the rare and wonderful permits that give drivers the right to operate a taxi and pick up street hails. Winning bidders paid as much as $965,000 for the latest batch of medallions. Last year the city drew even higher, record-setting prices in an auction for corporate medallions, which went for as much as $1.26 million. That record will be broken in the coming weeks when a single medallion changes hands for $1.31 million, according to Andrew Murstein of Medallion Financial, which is helping finance the deal.
Murstein, whose grandfather bought one of the city’s original medallions in 1937 for $10, says the auctions give the lie to the notion that Uber is having an apocalyptic impact on the taxi industry—a fiction that both overzealous cheerleaders of the startup and its opponents have an interest in promoting. “The taxi business is as strong as it’s ever been, despite Uber, because people in major cities will still go and stick their hands in the air,” he says. “Uber is nothing more than a terrific black car company.”
WSJ: North Carolina Is a Case Study in Jobless-Benefits Cut
Six years after the country plunged into recession, politicians and economic-policy makers face a prickly question: What happens when the government ends long-term unemployment benefits meant to help the jobless through the downturn and its aftermath?
One state, North Carolina, is running an experiment that offers some real-life answers.
Long-term unemployment benefits ended in North Carolina in July, six months before the federal government ended $25 billion in long-term jobless benefits for all the other states at the start of the new year. The Tar Heel State’s unemployment rate since then has plunged as people who were receiving benefits scrambled to find jobs or stopped looking for work. Employers report a flood of applicants.
National Journal: 40% of What You Pay for Beer Goes to Taxes
The next time you pour yourself a cold one, give yourself a pat on the back in the name of patriotism. On average, 40 percent of the price you paid for that beer is going straight to Uncle Sam and the state.
Lobbyists in Washington are pushing to reduce those taxes, at least by a few cents. The Beer Institute is supporting legislation cleverly titled the BEER Act, which would reduce the federal excise tax from $18 per 31-gallon barrel (an amount that doesn’t actually exist; a keg is 15.5 gallons) to $9 for large brewers. Smaller operations would pay nothing in excise taxes on the first 15,000 barrels they produce, while kicking in a mere $3.50 through 60,000 barrels.
Illinois Innovation Network: Venture capital funding fuels Chicago’s diverse economy
Venture capital activity is a crucial component of Illinois’ innovation ecosystem and a key indicator of investment trends for start-ups and entrepreneurs. As reported in the Q1 2013 quarterly Index report, the Chicago region has gained a reputation among start-ups and entrepreneurs as a hub where innovation-based companies can gain access to the capital needed to develop their business. This trend continued in 2013: in terms of early-stage investments into digital start-ups, Built In Chicago’s recent report found that 214 such companies were established in Chicago last year and received more than $1 billion in venture funding—a 169 percent increase over the previous year.
This month, the Index examines how Chicago compares with other leading U.S. metropolitan regions on venture funding in terms of total investment, concentration of funding by industry, and funding sources. Unless otherwise noted, the figures in this Index are from DJX VentureSource, a research database of venture-backed companies.1 This database only reports venture capital deals and investment values for companies that had previously received a round of funding. This means that it does not cover all companies and all deals. It nevertheless captures the majority of deals and is therefore a representative sample of overall venture capital activity.
h/t WirePoints
Naperville Sun: Forum puts government consolidation in the spotlight
Getting rid of some layers of government in Illinois was the topic of a forum in Lisle this week that drew participants from around the area.
DuPage County Board Chairman Dan Cronin said that the trend toward consolidating units of government is picking up steam.
“Would you design a system this way,” Cronin said about the number of government units in Illinois during the event at National-Louis University in Lisle.
Cronin was referring to the almost 7,000 units of government in Illinois, of which about 400 are in DuPage County.
Politico: IRS hit from all political stripes on nonprofit rules
Will a record-breaking amount of criticism force the Obama administration’s hand to soften proposed new rules for political nonprofits?
Opponents sure hope so.
Three months after the administration unveiled a controversial new rule for 501(c)(4) nonprofits, both liberal and conservatives groups are hoping a record amount of comments and a deluge of attention from Capitol Hill will persuade the Internal Revenue Service to at least pare back the proposals before finalizing the new rule.
CARTOON OF THE DAY
