I’m uncertain about the FTC ban on non-compete agreements.
My consistent theme is STORAGE, which includes amortizing skills. If a company has paid an inventor or developer while he worked up a device or program or design for the company, the business should be able to protect the skill they paid to develop. Patents and copyrights don’t work well in the area of software and designs.
On the other side, the ban makes an exception for a peculiar arrangement known in finance as a gardening leave. When an employee with valuable knowledge quits, the company will PAY him to keep his knowledge off the job market for a year or so. He’s paid to Tend His Candide Garden instead of working for anyone. This is the best equivalent of a copyright for embodied skill. Paying for value is ALWAYS better than mandating action.
The ban plus the exception COULD motivate companies to treat their amortized workers better in order to AVOID quitting. Now they treat every worker like shit and rely on the non-compete to prevent quitting. If this is the net result, the ban plus exception would be a good move.
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Language sidenote: Finance is a parasitic business, but it has MUCH more colorful and meaningful jargon than most technical or “social” “science” trades. Gardening leave is lively and self-explanatory. A recent Bloomberg podcast about the real estate practices of rich fuckheads said that Elon and Zuck are engaged in schnitzel measurement when they buy up competing blocks of $100 million mansions. Jingle mail is how a millionaire defaults on a mortgage. Just send the keys back to the lender and happily walk away.
Tech goes for dull and cumulative acronyms. ROM, PROM, EPROM, EEPROM, EEPROM++ and so on. “Social” “science” goes for incomprehensible and inverted jargon. Dunning-Kruger doesn’t tell you anything about the subject. The Barnum Effect is not what you think, sucker. Moral Hazard is the opposite of moral hazard. Munchausen Syndrome is NOT compulsive lying (like Craig Wright); it’s a type of hypochondria.
Polistra's Mill 