I can't think of many bigger wins impacting millions of workers than getting rid of non-competes and cracking down on "contractor" games that employers play.
I work for a private equity backed financial services firm. Calling my non-compete onerous would be putting it lightly. It’s insane and definitely written by the PE attorneys. Basically, if I leave my firm to either go to another one or start my own firm, I have a 24-month nonsolicit AND nonacceptance covenant. It’s essentially a career killer as written as I would have no clients and no pipeline.
I can’t imagine it would stand up to any scrutiny in a court of law as it is absurd, but the court of law is yet another deterrent. We’re not talking trade secrets here, just managing peoples money and acting as a fiduciary.
These types of noncompetes are 100% wage suppression and anti business formation.
Here's a 2021 50-state summary of non-compete laws. Most states allow them, usually with a general guideline that they must be "reasonable" in time and scope (courts decide what "reasonable" means). https://beckreedriden.com/50-state-noncompete-chart-2/ California bans them outright. A few other states ban them only for workers under a certain income threshold (e.g. $100k). At least 21 states are considering bills this year. https://faircompetitionlaw.com/2022/02/07/21-states-with-66-pending-noncompete-bills-florida/ Most of the pending state bills would only ban noncompetes for low-wage workers. Anyway, a federal-level ban would be better and cleaner.
Another great and informative newsletter - Loved the video but I would suggest China has learned from the best (us). Absent the power of sanctions, China uses its market power to punish. The use of Hollywood to convey domestic ‘propaganda’ has been going on for a long time (Mint Press has done several stories on DoD and CIA influence) and let’s not forget who are favourite villains are in the entertainment world. Also the US has been loathe to acknowledge our role with China in viral research and Covid (Sky Australia has footage of Fauci explaining why the US would conduct such research in China vs the US). China plays the long game creating dependent trading partners for scarce commodities and is implementing the Belts and Road initiative to secure their giant marketplace. Their state flower should be the Venus Fly-Trap. Meanwhile, like the fable of the grasshopper and the ant, the US was busy getting fat on the ‘good life.’ You are right, we can barely handle expensive gasoline (in Europe it’s always been expensive!!).
Aaron, for expanding the reach of antitrust journalism and coverage, "monopsony" is gibberish to most readers. It's also terrible poetically. I had to look it up. Better is spelling it out: "monopolies where there is only one buyer." Everyone can work with that. Using jargon here is against the flow to make these issues more accessible to more voters and thinkers.
The American people are pissed and frustrated over the low wages they have been paid over the past 5 decades. The analysis here gives us one very big reason why. Folks know that they are getting ripped off, but they don't quite know how or by whom. (They know the why: greed). This piece gives them a very good sense of the how and the whom. Workers are not quite chattel slavery, but they are fenced in, particularly when State and Federal regulators are complicit in the work of the monopolists, who allow wage fixing and are otherwise ignorant of the negative impact on labor occasioned by the schemes of monopolists. This, of course, is both an economic and political issue, and the political party that leads, and persists, in pointing out that “free markets” are stealing a fifth of their wages will attract lots of new voters.
This is a good article, very specific, reasonable and actionable recommendations. On the one hand I don't trust zealous and anti-business, Democrat-types of solutions, but on the other there are many anti-competitive laws that have been baked into the system by corporate lobbying over the decades that can easily be repealed to improve things almost instantly.
Good story, and one which should have been told decades ago. One of the worst-hit sectors is journalism. Rates for freelance work have been static or in decline for decades, and "worldwide rights in perpetuity" grabs by publishers are now standard. And no-one can write about it, because they can't find a publisher to run the story, or they can run the story once, and then never work again as a journalist. Given the concentration of power that's happened in the news (especially print) business, you might want to turn your eagle eye there.
Is. Whated-mess,,, My view this started from 1980`s. leverage pay outs, to a Libertarian type economy. Globally, being from and note in 2010 MIF put "globally" poverty level at $1.25 an hour .
For the USA this wasnt going to be sustainable for at lease the bottom half.
With Corp greed as it is,, I hope we can become more in depend for Our own needs.
Oil and Gasoline, note: 2007 or so when Oil hit $147 barrow, on annalistic views of 1% over what was being produce a day. what will 7-10%shortages do to prices? All goods down the line.
I state, We have Oil here in the US. Oil companies just put caps on wells.
We can be exporters like in 2019, JUST open the tap that`s already online.
If Section 230 is modified such that server operators become responsible for content they host which originated with another user, user generated content will enter a dark age.
This will only be remedied when fully decentralized, anonymized, and encrypted channels for content distribution become mature. Protocols like matrix are already remarkably capable, but social networks have yet to adopt them as the backbone hosting.
Such an incentive would be incredibly detrimental both to big tech (which depends on centralized servers) and businesses based on intellectual property.
Mitchell, seems like you are almost proposing a solution to the problems Matt describes. Can you be more clear how Matrix protocol solves any of the problems noted?
Scroll a little bit down to the "How it Works" section, they have a phenomenal diagram that explains it very clearly. In short, what they have is a model for updates to data which allows the information to live and be stored across multiple servers. This gives each individual participant provenance over their data. Furthermore, later updates to their architecture allow a user's data to live on a server while remaining entirely encrypted to the hosting service, while accessible to other users whom the primary owner grants access.
The main challenge is the amount of work necessary for future tech companies to utilize these technologies as their server infrastructure. This commonly goes against many classic tech business models, such as software as a service or recommendation services.
I'm not sure I can get onboard with Thomas' vision of curtailing Section 230, because I don't trust him not to simply weaponize control over speech, to attack people he dislikes, and grant impunity to those he does like. And the moral panic against "sex trafficking" (which happens, but is orders of magnitude rarer than it is made out to be by folks like Thomas), as embodied in laws like FOSTA / SESTA, is already causing lots of problems for people who were happily and voluntarily making their living in various types of sex work. In particular, it's becoming very difficult for such people to accept payments for their work, because the Visa/Mastercard duopoly have started demanding that any platform that uses their service demonetize people based on arbitrary and capricious rules. It makes the people who do that work poorer and less safe.
US Monopolies are the tip of the Iceberg called Betrayal!
The CCP, Wall Street, The US ☭hamber Of ☭ommerce and ☭orporate Ameri☭a bribed ☭ongress to write the laws that made it legal to screw over America and allow the greatest transfer of jobs, wealth and intellectual property in modern history to an avowed enemy, Communist China, making them the threat they are today.
☭ongress and ☭orporate America are the real enemy!
I can't think of many bigger wins impacting millions of workers than getting rid of non-competes and cracking down on "contractor" games that employers play.
I work for a private equity backed financial services firm. Calling my non-compete onerous would be putting it lightly. It’s insane and definitely written by the PE attorneys. Basically, if I leave my firm to either go to another one or start my own firm, I have a 24-month nonsolicit AND nonacceptance covenant. It’s essentially a career killer as written as I would have no clients and no pipeline.
I can’t imagine it would stand up to any scrutiny in a court of law as it is absurd, but the court of law is yet another deterrent. We’re not talking trade secrets here, just managing peoples money and acting as a fiduciary.
These types of noncompetes are 100% wage suppression and anti business formation.
Here's a 2021 50-state summary of non-compete laws. Most states allow them, usually with a general guideline that they must be "reasonable" in time and scope (courts decide what "reasonable" means). https://beckreedriden.com/50-state-noncompete-chart-2/ California bans them outright. A few other states ban them only for workers under a certain income threshold (e.g. $100k). At least 21 states are considering bills this year. https://faircompetitionlaw.com/2022/02/07/21-states-with-66-pending-noncompete-bills-florida/ Most of the pending state bills would only ban noncompetes for low-wage workers. Anyway, a federal-level ban would be better and cleaner.
Another great and informative newsletter - Loved the video but I would suggest China has learned from the best (us). Absent the power of sanctions, China uses its market power to punish. The use of Hollywood to convey domestic ‘propaganda’ has been going on for a long time (Mint Press has done several stories on DoD and CIA influence) and let’s not forget who are favourite villains are in the entertainment world. Also the US has been loathe to acknowledge our role with China in viral research and Covid (Sky Australia has footage of Fauci explaining why the US would conduct such research in China vs the US). China plays the long game creating dependent trading partners for scarce commodities and is implementing the Belts and Road initiative to secure their giant marketplace. Their state flower should be the Venus Fly-Trap. Meanwhile, like the fable of the grasshopper and the ant, the US was busy getting fat on the ‘good life.’ You are right, we can barely handle expensive gasoline (in Europe it’s always been expensive!!).
Good article, though you should use the term Monopsony when referring to concentration of buyers.
I hate that word!
Aaron, for expanding the reach of antitrust journalism and coverage, "monopsony" is gibberish to most readers. It's also terrible poetically. I had to look it up. Better is spelling it out: "monopolies where there is only one buyer." Everyone can work with that. Using jargon here is against the flow to make these issues more accessible to more voters and thinkers.
This seems too good to be true. I really hope some of this optimism bears fruit.
The American people are pissed and frustrated over the low wages they have been paid over the past 5 decades. The analysis here gives us one very big reason why. Folks know that they are getting ripped off, but they don't quite know how or by whom. (They know the why: greed). This piece gives them a very good sense of the how and the whom. Workers are not quite chattel slavery, but they are fenced in, particularly when State and Federal regulators are complicit in the work of the monopolists, who allow wage fixing and are otherwise ignorant of the negative impact on labor occasioned by the schemes of monopolists. This, of course, is both an economic and political issue, and the political party that leads, and persists, in pointing out that “free markets” are stealing a fifth of their wages will attract lots of new voters.
Maron, I like. This topic is ripe for another Breaking Points Matt video.
This is a good article, very specific, reasonable and actionable recommendations. On the one hand I don't trust zealous and anti-business, Democrat-types of solutions, but on the other there are many anti-competitive laws that have been baked into the system by corporate lobbying over the decades that can easily be repealed to improve things almost instantly.
Getting rid of non-competes strikes me as an extremely market-friendly bipartisan solution, but I suppose some might disagree.
Hi Matt
Good story, and one which should have been told decades ago. One of the worst-hit sectors is journalism. Rates for freelance work have been static or in decline for decades, and "worldwide rights in perpetuity" grabs by publishers are now standard. And no-one can write about it, because they can't find a publisher to run the story, or they can run the story once, and then never work again as a journalist. Given the concentration of power that's happened in the news (especially print) business, you might want to turn your eagle eye there.
Is. Whated-mess,,, My view this started from 1980`s. leverage pay outs, to a Libertarian type economy. Globally, being from and note in 2010 MIF put "globally" poverty level at $1.25 an hour .
For the USA this wasnt going to be sustainable for at lease the bottom half.
With Corp greed as it is,, I hope we can become more in depend for Our own needs.
Oil and Gasoline, note: 2007 or so when Oil hit $147 barrow, on annalistic views of 1% over what was being produce a day. what will 7-10%shortages do to prices? All goods down the line.
I state, We have Oil here in the US. Oil companies just put caps on wells.
We can be exporters like in 2019, JUST open the tap that`s already online.
If Section 230 is modified such that server operators become responsible for content they host which originated with another user, user generated content will enter a dark age.
This will only be remedied when fully decentralized, anonymized, and encrypted channels for content distribution become mature. Protocols like matrix are already remarkably capable, but social networks have yet to adopt them as the backbone hosting.
Such an incentive would be incredibly detrimental both to big tech (which depends on centralized servers) and businesses based on intellectual property.
Mitchell, seems like you are almost proposing a solution to the problems Matt describes. Can you be more clear how Matrix protocol solves any of the problems noted?
https://matrix.org/
Scroll a little bit down to the "How it Works" section, they have a phenomenal diagram that explains it very clearly. In short, what they have is a model for updates to data which allows the information to live and be stored across multiple servers. This gives each individual participant provenance over their data. Furthermore, later updates to their architecture allow a user's data to live on a server while remaining entirely encrypted to the hosting service, while accessible to other users whom the primary owner grants access.
The main challenge is the amount of work necessary for future tech companies to utilize these technologies as their server infrastructure. This commonly goes against many classic tech business models, such as software as a service or recommendation services.
I'm not sure I can get onboard with Thomas' vision of curtailing Section 230, because I don't trust him not to simply weaponize control over speech, to attack people he dislikes, and grant impunity to those he does like. And the moral panic against "sex trafficking" (which happens, but is orders of magnitude rarer than it is made out to be by folks like Thomas), as embodied in laws like FOSTA / SESTA, is already causing lots of problems for people who were happily and voluntarily making their living in various types of sex work. In particular, it's becoming very difficult for such people to accept payments for their work, because the Visa/Mastercard duopoly have started demanding that any platform that uses their service demonetize people based on arbitrary and capricious rules. It makes the people who do that work poorer and less safe.
US Monopolies are the tip of the Iceberg called Betrayal!
The CCP, Wall Street, The US ☭hamber Of ☭ommerce and ☭orporate Ameri☭a bribed ☭ongress to write the laws that made it legal to screw over America and allow the greatest transfer of jobs, wealth and intellectual property in modern history to an avowed enemy, Communist China, making them the threat they are today.
☭ongress and ☭orporate America are the real enemy!