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POTUS 46.10: A New Hope

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FadeToBlack&Gold said:
The thing about Maher is that he isn't necessarily always wrong, he's just such a pompous a55 in the way he talks down to people whom he considers beneath his intellect.
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Which is doubly annoying because, while not rock stupid, Maher is of average intelligence for a Cornellian. He's not an MBA, but he's no RBG either.

Coulter and Maher are equally irritating in that they ape the Arrogant Intellect persona but don't have the chops to back it up. Obermann did, at least, though he really overplayed the (ahem, familiar...) Sheridan Whiteside routine. S.E. Cupp is smarter than all of them and yet managed not to do that drag act. So is Bill Nye.

We are Legion.
 
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FadeToBlack&Gold said:
I was going to mention him as the standard-bearer for this type of media figure, but I didn't want to poison the well by drawing a bad comparison. The thing about Maher is that he isn't necessarily always wrong, he's just such a pompous a55 in the way he talks down to people whom he considers beneath his intellect. It's also kind of weird considering he's a Cornell grad. I'd understand more if his parents had overspent on a Hahvid (sucks!) degree.
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That is why he does it...Cornell Grads are all just Andy Bernard from The Office ;^)

He is also arrogant because he is a comedian and that is his schtick.

Hayes is not the problem...Chuck Todd is the problem.
 
I don't think NCAs should be completely banned, but there should be a law to restrict them to folks in leadership roles and limit the maximum term to 1-2 years. In theory, the courts are supposed to consider whether or not an NCA is reasonable with respect to industry scope, time, and geography, but I think it would be better to just put the limits in stone rather than leaving it up to judges who tend to rule in favor of corporations by default.
 
FadeToBlack&Gold said:
I don't think NCAs should be completely banned, but there should be a law to restrict them to folks in leadership roles and limit the maximum term to 1-2 years. In theory, the courts are supposed to consider whether or not an NCA is reasonable with respect to industry scope, time, and geography, but I think it would be better to just put the limits in stone rather than leaving it up to judges who tend to rule in favor of corporations by default.
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North Dakota has banned non-competes for a few years now, with some exceptions. It's pretty important to allow them in a situation like the sale of a business. I wouldn't want to buy a restaurant from someone, then have them walk across the street and open back up. But companies like Amazon and others have clearly stretched their use too far.

I'll be curious to see what they do on the "wage collusion" issue mentioned. I don't see how they could forbid companies from telling each other what they pay their employees. That's about as classic a "free speech" problem as I think you could get. Thus, they'll be left with prohibiting companies from trading the information for purposes of collusion or "price fixing," so to speak, which is a pretty tough proof problem.
 
NCAs are really only valid when you have very specialized knowledge of say a chemical manufacturing process and even then other laws govern stealing proprietary information. They have been greatly abused. Nuke them.
 
SJHovey said:
I'll be curious to see what they do on the "wage collusion" issue mentioned. I don't see how they could forbid companies from telling each other what they pay their employees. That's about as classic a "free speech" problem as I think you could get. Thus, they'll be left with prohibiting companies from trading the information for purposes of collusion or "price fixing," so to speak, which is a pretty tough proof problem.
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You literally described the solution in your last paragraph and described its limits. It's no different than price-fixing. It's not speech, it's collusion.
 
Kepler said:
NCAs are really only valid when you have very specialized knowledge of say a chemical manufacturing process and even then other laws govern stealing proprietary information. They have been greatly abused. Nuke them.
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Yep. That's literally the example I was going to mention. There are certain levels in the tech ladder at my company where, rumor has it, you sign fairly comprehensive NCAs**. You know way, way too much about the secret sauce. There's no way for some people to work for competitors without necessarily divulging information that may be key to the 11 herbs and spices that go into some of our products, for example. Like, even the OEMs for the equipment in some cases are considered TS and protected.

I actually don't have an issue with NCAs at face. However, I do agree that there should be rules and limits that govern them to a fairly narrow set of circumstances. I also thought that NCAs were generally unenforceable if you could show that they essentially prevented you from being employed. Not without compensation.

ACME shouldn't be able to ban someone from working at "ACME Competitor A" who makes anvils if that's one of 50,000 products. ACME should be able to limit your ability to work on anything related to anvils at "ACA" though. At least for a certain time after you leave ACME. Or as Kepler was alluding to, the abusive way they've been used to absolutely screw people.

tl;dr: What fade said.


**That said, if the rumors are true, you're also given a pretty handsome compensation package as part of this. Stipends, allowances, etc.
 
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A bunch of years ago Guitar Center used these agreements to break Mars Music. Mars opened up a bunch of stores near GC locations and were super successful (because GC is garbage). GC, in response, offered huge signing bonuses to Mars employees if they stuck around at GC for 90 days and in exchange for NCAs. And then fired almost all of them on like day 89.
 
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