Government regulations are under fire, and for good reason. There were 3,853 regulations in the Federal Register in 2016, of which 629 were specifically impactful on small businesses, said Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. A great number were issued after the Presidential election in November.

That's the title of a book by Joe Carlen on the pioneers, profiteers, and racketeers who shaped our world. Published by Columbia Business School Publishing, you might expect it to be a dry read, but I found it to be a page turner. Okay, I was a history major and I love this stuff. But I believe that continually expanding our understanding of the roots of entrepreneurship and what's changed are key to being a good business owner. Here are 5 things I learned from the book:

Buddy punching isn't physical assault among friends. Rather, it's a practice of having one employee clock in or out on a job to falsify hours. The practice is used to cover for a late arrival, an absence, or other reason.  TSheets estimates that the practice costs employer $373 million a year. A TSheets' survey in February 2017 found that 16% of hourly employees admitted to buddy punching. Do you think, or know, that this practice is going on in your company? What can you do about it?

There were 4.8 million S corporation returns filed during the government's 2016 fiscal year. There are no recent statistics on the number of shareholders in these S corporations; I'm guessing about 5 to 10 million (many only have 1 to 3 shareholders). Owners of S corporations can deduct corporate losses that are passed through to them, but only to the extent of their basis in stock (funds they contributed to the corporation) and debt (loans they've made to the corporation).