CEI Today: Twitter IPO, Obamacare & Big Labor, and investment treaties

Today in the News

TWITTER IPO – JOHN BERLAU

Openmarket.org: Twitter, the JOBS Act, and the Return to IPO Normalcy

Twitter likely went public earlier than expected due to the JOBS Act’s regulatory relief provisions. In the “Form S-1” Twitter filed to launch its IPO, the company declares, “We are an emerging growth company, and … we may choose to take advantage of exemptions from various reporting requirements under the JOBS Act.

” Yet companies that go public before making their first profit are not products of the so-called radicalism of the JOBS Act, nor were they aberrations of the go-go ’90s era in which Amazon listed.

Going public before profitability was in fact the historical norm before Sarbanes-Oxley.

 

OBAMACARE & BIG LABOR – TREY KOVACS

Workplacechoice.org: Obama Administration Rule Exempts Big Labor from Obamacare Tax

In September, the Obama administration rejected union demands for subsidies offered under Obamacare, which are reserved for the uninsured and low-income workers.

However, tax relief from Obamacare is in the horizon for Big Labor. As reported by Kaiser Health News, “Buried in rules issued last week is the disclosure that the administration will propose exempting “certain self-insured, self-administered plans” from the law’s temporary reinsurance fee in 2015 and 2016.”

 

FREE TRADE – FRAN SMITH

Openmarket.org: Enflaming, Not Enlightening: George Monbiot on Investment Treaties

Is “the purpose of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is to remove the regulatory differences between the U.S. and European nations”? No. TTIP’s purpose is to promote freer trade between two of the largest trading blocs in the world by removing tariffs, addressing non-tariff barriers, and attempting to streamline differing regulatory schemes that impede trade. Through reducing or eliminating trade barriers, the overarching purpose is to increase economic growth and create new jobs on both sides of the Atlantic.