FTC passes a law

Why have a Congress when the bureaucracy legislates?

The Federal Trade Commission passed a law that makes it illegal for a person to agree with his employer not to compete against them when he leaves. Usually compensation is involved. These are called noncompete agreements — a contract between two private parties. Why this is any of the government’s business is beyond my powers of comprehension. The constitutionality of this ban also escapes me.

Congress should make law — not a group of befuddled bureaucrats and a panel of politically appointed pinheads.

The FTC claimed, “The FTC estimates that the final rule banning noncompetes will lead to new business formation growing by 2.7% per year, resulting in more than 8,500 additional new businesses created each year. The final rule is expected to result in higher earnings for workers, with estimated earnings increasing for the average worker by an additional $524 per year, and it is expected to lower health care costs by up to $194 billion over the next decade. In addition, the final rule is expected to help drive innovation, leading to an estimated average increase of 17,000 to 29,000 more patents each year for the next 10 years under the final rule.”

What happens if worker earnings don’t rise $524 a year on top of normal raises?

What happens if health care costs rise?

What happens if patents don’t grow?

Do we get the unconstitutional law revoked? Do we get to fire staff members who recommended this? Do we get to sue the FTC members who voted for this?

Of course not. There are no consequences. Where there are no consequences, terrible things happen over and over again. The bureaucracy gets away with legislating because agencies just do it and no one objects.

I am not really sure how or why the FTC got involved in non-disclosure agreements — maybe it is TDS over Stormy Daniels’s attempt to blackmail Trump.

The New York Times said, “Stormy Daniels tried to benefit from Donald J. Trump’s political momentum in early 2016, setting off the saga that ultimately resulted in his criminal trial.

“Her agent reached out to Dylan Howard, editor of The National Enquirer, and editorial chiefs at other publications, seeking about $200,000 to tell her story of having sex with Mr. Trump a decade before when he was at a golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.”

There was more.

Revolver reported, “Buried in this excerpt is a significant little detail: despite the fact that Stormy Daniels at the time denied an affair with Trump, she gave an interview telling the story of her affair to a tabloid in 2011. This story was then published in 2011 and had been in the public domain for quite some time. Our source, who has direct knowledge of such matters, offered corroborating information that further highlights the farce that is the case against Trump.”

So she tried to cash in on the story and received money in an NDA that Trump never signed. He ain’t stupid.

Readers aren’t either. They see why FJB wants NDAs banned.

In announcing the FTC’s newest unconstitutional law, it said, “In January 2023, the FTC issued a proposed rule which was subject to a 90-day public comment period. The FTC received more than 26,000 comments on the proposed rule, with over 25,000 comments in support of the FTC’s proposed ban on NDAs. The comments informed the FTC’s final rulemaking process, with the FTC carefully reviewing each comment and making changes to the proposed rule in response to the public’s feedback.”

Do you recall being told there was a proposal to arbitrarily end this type of contract?

Insiders knew. Lobbyists in Washington seldom bother with Congress. They go where the real power is — at all those alphabet agencies such as the FTC, FDA and CDC. We saw how this worked out during the pandemic panic. Pfizer got the FDA to block doctors treating covid with HCQ and ivermectin to clear the way for bringing an unproven drug — falsely labeled a vaccine — to the market and forcing every American to take it at the risk of losing their jobs.

The communist American Prospect supported the FTC’s new law. The publication fears the courts may get into the act and expects the Chamber of Commerce to sue.

It said, “A lawsuit could more broadly threaten the rulemaking authority the FTC cited when proposing to ban noncompetes. This authority, under Section 5 of the FTC Act, was dormant for decades until the ascent of Lina Khan to the position of chair. Writing definitive rules protecting against unfair methods of competition across the economy relieves the FTC of having to rely on lawsuits against individual firms. Lawsuits often take years and require costly expert analysis, while rulemaking can set bright lines barring anti-competitive activity.

“The FTC asserted the right to use Section 5 rulemaking in a policy statement in 2022. While a noncompete ban robs companies of a key wage suppression tool, the Chamber of Commerce and its allies are perhaps even more afraid of repeated uses of rulemaking to set guardrails for firm behavior. That’s why the fight over noncompetes will be even bigger than the specific rule.”

Nothing in the Constitution allows the bureaucracy to ban such covenants.

But power often is the appearance of power and in the absence of a legislative branch that cares more about legislating and less about fundraising, the alphabet agencies assume power.

The press carried water for the bureaucracy, with AP saying, “U.S. companies would no longer be able to bar employees from taking jobs with competitors under a rule approved by a federal agency Tuesday, though the rule is sure to be challenged in court.

“The Federal Trade Commission voted Tuesday 3-2 to ban measures known as noncompete agreements, which bar workers from jumping to or starting competing companies for a prescribed period of time. According to the FTC, 30 million people — roughly one in five workers — are now subject to such restrictions.”

The report said, “The rule, which doesn’t apply to workers at non-profits, is to take effect in four months unless it is blocked by legal challenges.”

AP is a nonprofit.

NPR — another nonprofit — basically lobbied for the ban, running such stories as: Noncompete Agreements Are Everywhere, Even Neighborhood Yoga Studios and Many workers barely recall signing noncompetes, until they try to change jobs. I could not find a story that said it helps prevent a company from training a future competitor who takes trade secrets with him.

While the press promoted the new law with sob sister stories, only Reuters gave an inkling that the other side might not be sinister and might actually have a point.

In Paragraph 8 of its eight-paragraph story, Reuters said, “But the agency's two Republican commissioners, Melissa Holyoak and Andrew Ferguson, said federal law does not allow the commission to adopt broad rules prohibiting conduct that it deems anticompetitive.”

Just remember, Congress is about 50% Democrat while the bureaucracy is 90% Democrat. Hence, the Democrats and RINOs in Congress let the bureaucracy do whatever it wants.

And the bureaucracy wants to do everything. Let no part of your life go ungoverned, lest you enjoy your God-given freedom.

I praise Ted Cruz for taking on the bureaucracy, which last week announced a new law that requires airlines to refund passengers’ money immediately, immediately, immediately when a flight is canceled. The token gay guy who is the figurehead for DOT said this is “the biggest expansion of passenger rights in the department's history.”

Senator Cruz is challenging the Biden bureaucracy’s ability to make such a law.

How is the press reporting it? Rolling Stone said, “Ted Cruz Wants Airlines to Keep Your Cash When They Cancel Your Flight.”

I am no expert on the aviation industry. No one at Rolling Stone is either.

But I do know that when a Democrat labels something a right it usually is robbing Peter to pay you. Taking the flexibility out of scheduling flights is a good way to sink an airline. Maybe that’s the plan.