The Most Important Thing In the World

The FTC ends non-compete clause in the states. What does that mean for businesses? 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You're listening to the downbeat on ninetyseven to one the Freak four. Good
morning, Hey, it's most ofyour your cool ass down beat here today,
any Batles, Mike's froid JJ's here. We mentioned Kevin's coming back from

(00:23):
Italy. Today, we got correspondencefrom this psycho somewhere over the Atlantic,
and I think he's approaching the deepestpoint of the Atlantic. He is listening.
This nut not only is just reachingout to us because he knows we're

(00:44):
awake. He somehow has it beenable to find himself smart enough to stream
our show on a plane. Show'seasy to stream though, thanks the iHeart
Radio app, a quality app whereyou get a lot of free programming.
Should download the iHeartRadio app. Justlook up ninety seven the free You can

(01:04):
listen anywhere, including right over thedeadliest portion of the Atlantic Ocean, which
Kevin is approaching. He is listening, he said, I feel worse about
my chances at safety after hearing theJardians Lady, because we did have a
cameo from the Jardians Lady singing asong about Kevin successfully traversing the Atlantic Ocean,
or hoping to do so. Hesaid, Rise's been a little bumpy.

(01:26):
Danny reassures him with it's just turbulence. You're fine, but it was
interesting. If you're on the plane, you're not privy to the information that
we have. Because I'm actually lookingat a flight tracker and there are a
lot of red words on this talkingabout American Online flight two thirty nine.
There's a lot of information about things. I look, Kevin's listening, so
I don't want to. I shouldn'tread this. He shouldn't know this.

(01:49):
Look, we can't. We can'tdeny our our audience of top tier content
just because one man might find takeobjection to yeah, exact, So let's
not. Let's let's do the rightthing here and sure share your info with
with the larger group. The truthis, he's on the plane, he
shouldn't know. You know how manyengines are down to right. We know

(02:12):
that because we have flight trackers wherewe can tell the sort of thing,
but they probably prevent that info getand released, and that certainly Captain's not
gonna come out and say it.Look it does say here at the bottom.
Passengers are probably gonna be fine.Okay. So that's all, Kevin,
That's all you need to know kevioLet sweet Roxy sleep. It seems

(02:36):
like also in his flight path ifyou if you look, not only is
he one of the deepest parts ofthe ocean, I mean he approaching.
He's not over the deepest yet,he's in front of him also near one
of the coldest parts. Because whenyou're flying between two countries that are green
on the map and the one directlyabove you is white. Yea, I'm

(02:59):
assuming that's he's coming up on somewhite nation, a white nation that is
covered in frozen water otherwise known asice, and the water around that,
that ice, that giant ice islandis probably incredibly cold. Yeah, yeah,
that would be tough. He's asurvivor though, even know, if

(03:21):
things go south, he's going tobe like one of them polar bears clinging
to a you know, the blockof ice. The hell this guy get
on there? But he's on there, and that's the most important thing.
You're still alive right now. IfRoxy wakes up, you may want to
just say whatever you gotta say,though, anything you want to say,
just in case you're not like,not like an official goodbye, no,

(03:46):
no, I agree, but maybeexactly do what we all should be doing.
To the people that we're closest toevery day exact but especially now.
There's a very wise person who oncesaid to a enjoy your every minute while
you have it. And according toflight Aware, we might not have all
that many minutes left. They changedthings out as quick on this world.

(04:10):
So enjoy your every minute while youhave it. If you have a window
seat, don't look out toward whateverwing you're next to him. I'd say
that to him, because there's gonnabe a lot of darkness and silence and
smoke and maybe smoke. That's whythey put four engines on that thing,
big dog. I don't need themall, No, just need one in

(04:33):
the According to this it's blinking,but you have one. You're good,
aren't you? Glad you tuned in? keV? Oh, good morning,
Kevin. That's probably the most importantthing in the world. Let's stood up.

(05:15):
Look, I ain't lie the mostmore than the world's maths are tied
one to one. The boys arecoming home, unlike keV. The MAVs
are still in this series. Unlikeyeah, yeah, we'll get to We'll
get to MAVs in about twenty minutesSports at seven. But for now,

(05:39):
I have for the most important thingin the world, a law change,
if you want to put it assuch. And this affects us, you
know, so obviously this gets textaround real quick. But there's a great
chance this affects you someone you orsomeone you live with or friends. I
mean, it affects a lot ofpeople. Thirty million people deal with these.
I think it's one in five Americansare either under one right now or

(06:02):
have have been in their employment lives. And yeah, something big happened over
I guess yesterday, Yeah, yesterday. So the FTC, the Federal Trade
Commission, essentially banned non compete agreementsnon competes do I mean, there's different

(06:23):
ways a look at this, youknow, and depending on where you get
your news, it will be youknow, pumped, absolutely pumped your direction
in whatever way most benefits that peopleare providing your news, I suppose.
But to my best understanding of this, and these were created basically to protect

(06:46):
company information, data strategies, secrets, things of that nature. And in
that regard, I think those there'scertain there's certain smaller elements of the non
comp that I think are important,especially maybe in the tech world or finance
world, any world where you workyou you deal with maybe proprietary data.

(07:13):
So if you left that company,you immediately don't just steal their ideas or
share strategies or secrets with a competingcompany a non compete what they've evolved into.
Unfortunately, and again this is myexperience in my opinion, and you
will get varying takes on this outthis this whole thing, depending on who

(07:38):
you ask, what it's done isis kind of been a tool to hamstring
workers to where it's not so muchanymore about protecting secrets. And I'm talking
about the people that are making tonsand tons of money. It now affects

(07:58):
people that are making minimal way.These things are in place for fast food
workers so that if you leave aBurger King and you don't like working at
Burger King anymore, there's people thatare working under noncompete contracts that if they
left that Burger King, if theywanted to go work at Windy's and it
was within a five mile radius,yeah they can't. They can't, And

(08:22):
it's not so they don't. Theydon't steal from Burger King. The mystic
art of the flame broil, youknow, Yeah, but that's you're exactly
right in the world where like highend economic jobs, tech, even banking
or whatever, it makes sense.But then smaller, lower paying regular jobs
kind of started sneaking these in aslike boilerplate language. It's the tooth.

(08:46):
Whatever they sign on for, likeyou said, retail, hospitality, construction,
fast food, it don't belong.And the reason for this is is
it wields a certain amount of powerover and that if they're in a situation
where they're not necessarily happy and theywant to have a better outlook on life

(09:07):
and maybe work for someplace that's different, it kind of makes them think twice
because it's like, Okay, wellif I leave, then I've got to
either wait. Depending on how longyou're non competing, some of them are
up to eighteen months that I've beenreading. Some people are not having to
not work in their field for eighteenmonths, and they're kind of being tethered

(09:28):
to these companies where there's really nocompetition for wages. There's no bidding wars.
It's like some say, you workfor one company and another company goes,
man, I love what you do. We'll double your pay if you
come over here. You can't leavebecause if you do, then you're going
to have to sit for six months, a year, a year and a
half, maybe two years in somecases. So do you have enough money

(09:52):
in your bank to not work fora year? Yeah? Yeah, Or
here's what's happened. You remember you'veheard this about our whole life. Well,
Frank had to take a job inanother state, or we're moving because
of work. Well it's like,well, doesn't Frank work for a bank.
It's like, yeah, but hecan't work at any banks in Dallas
because he left this one institution.So we're going to have to go to

(10:13):
another market. And costs are youknow, involved in in a move.
And who wants to uproot your familyand take your kids out of school just
because a noncompete prohibits you from doingyour job, the thing that you were
trained to do and good at,in a city that you love being in.
And they're incredibly unfair in that regard, and they kind of hold their

(10:35):
employees hostage. Now, I ina way, it's almost kind of makes
a little bit of sense with thefast food or retail because these companies do
spend a ton of money. Alot of their expenses are in training,
so you're basically, you know,having to pay people to train them,
and you give them all of thisknowledge and they work for two months and

(10:56):
then they leave, and then it'san inconvenience to bring in another person and
train that person for a month ortwo months or whatever to get them up
to speed on your protocols and yourdynamic and all of that. And it
kind of it does make a littlebit of sense. So you're not just,
you know, have this revolving doorof people just training and leaving and
training and leaving. But hey,guess what pay your employees they what they

(11:18):
should earn, what their value is, and provide a workplace that is enjoyable
to be in. Then you don'thave to worry about them leaving. And
that's the problem is because once theyhave you under a non compete, they
pretty much have you, Yeah,because they know your options are incredibly limited.

(11:39):
Anyway, it creates No, you'reabsolutely right, and I like a
measured response at it, and Iagree with you. Yeah, but look,
the favor is more often than nottilted toward the bosses and the corporations
in this country. So yes,if one of the prices that they have
to pay is training and having troubleretaining, Yeah, that's not ideal,

(12:00):
but it does give more power tothe worker and the little guy essentially is
what this does. And it willcreate a churning of employees. It will
give people opportunities and the you know, ability to seize opportunities when they're presented
to them, rather than just staystagnated at the job and not take those

(12:20):
potential opportunities as they come, right, I mean not Cope's essentially trap workers
into their jobs and prevent them fromusing their skills to earn higher pay.
And that's what it should be.You know, you should be able to
move. Go just do something else. How about this one? Go start
your own business. Now I dohere, I do hear that side of
Like, I work at Danny BaylessIndustries, and you teach me everything you

(12:41):
know, and I learn how tomake wacky parody songs that are funny,
and then I go and start youknow, soroy music, and I just
have more money and more investment,and I crushed Danny Baylists Industries. I
mean that's sort of the picture paintedfor those who oppose this sort of thing.
But whatever, if you work hereyour place and you're like, look,

(13:01):
I know how this thing works,and I got a better way to
do it. I can do itcheaper and smarter and employ good people.
It's America, right. You shouldhave the opportunity to do it, and
as per yesterday's announcement by the FTC, you now or soon at least,
will have the opportunity do them.I spoke with a friend of yours and

(13:22):
mine that is an attorney that worksin this field and is pretty knowledgeable on
all things labor related, and hesent we were communicating yesterday about this,
and he said that the Federal TradeCommission is setting the effective date one hundred
and twenty days from now. Okay, this was after the vote passed,

(13:45):
but as a practical matter, itwill be almost impossible to enforce non competes
after today. So I think whathe's saying here is that if you are
working under a non compete and youwant to violate it, leave your job,
go work somewhere else. If thatother company is willing to take you
on and take that risk of alawsuit, well, I think what he's

(14:09):
saying here is that number one,knowing that the writing is on the wall
and that this is going to gointo effect, that what company is going
to spend more resources fighting something thatis going to ultimately lose anyway. We've
seen been very close to a casewith friends of ours involved that fought a

(14:35):
non compete before any of this rulinghappened and one and one and by and
law. From what I understand isnon competes are very hard to enforce anyway,
especially if you have a pretty goodteam that can go up against corporate
law and knows the ins and outsof this stuff. Because look, the

(14:56):
corporate lawyers, the bulk of theirstrategy is intimidation tactic anyway, and it's
this cease and desist or we're threateninglegal action and you're going to be responsible
for all of the costs that weincur. It's kind of that. But
once you get into a courtroom andpresent your case, the judge and jury

(15:20):
or whoever is deciding on the outcomelooks at these things for what they are,
and they're bs and there's a reasonwhy they got voted out, and
there's a reason why they're going tobe obsolete or completely gone in about what
six and four months. Yeah,and specifically I think in Texas, I
don't even know. I'll say itlike I know the right to work thing.

(15:41):
Don't even know exactly what that means, but from what I understand in
Texas, they nearly impossible to upholdanyway prior to yesterday, sure, and
obviously prior to two months from now. When they are four months from now,
when it becomes official official, It'sawesome, man, this is a
good day. Cal feel texting.One dude says, I won't to say
his name whatever, I'm an automaticdoor repair technician. We have five years

(16:03):
on our non compete, and anotherguy I didn't think say what he does,
but it is minus three years.So I wonder even when this is
just full steam ahead with the maximumamount, or maybe it's I don't know,
if five is just to scare you, maybe so you don't even think
about leaving, or three years,but those those essentially lock you into that
job, probably at whatever pay you'reat, within reason. If you have

(16:26):
an annual increase in salary, fine, well yeah, because they know your
options are limited to there's. Ittakes away the competition, it takes away
your earning power. And I've satin so many fing meetings when it's time
for a review or it's time fora raise, and you see, you
see what the company is generating revenuewise, and then you get the good

(16:49):
cop, bad cop, dog andpony show of yeah, we just had
a really rough quarter, and yeah, we're not gonna be able to give
you that that that two percent salaryincrease, which translates to I don't know
about fifteen dollars a paycheck, andyou kind of just go all right,

(17:11):
because what are you gonna do?Yeah, no, nothing, You're locked.
And then you quit and then watchthem line up ready to give you
the world estimate of the ban theban of this not non competes again yesterday
announced from the FT the Federal TradeCommission could increase wages by three hundred billion
a year and it will impact nearlythirty million Americans, as you stated earlier.

(17:34):
Yeah, the thing is, man, that the way these things were
originated, to my best understanding isit feels like that it was the right
thing to do for company secrets,strategies, whatnot, but they used it
as a tool for evil. Andyou get rid of the non competes.

(17:56):
Look, just when you make anew higher then you have them sign NDAs
to say or put the language inthe contract saying that if I go to
another company. Then I agree thatI will not share information. I will
not share documents or secrets or whatevera plan, your plan, I won't

(18:18):
do that. But to keep peoplefrom opening their own businesses, to keep
people from from going for a morea higher paying job, to eliminate the
competition as far as salaries and paymentand wages and all that. That's it's
not very American if you ask me. It's a win for work worker types,

(18:41):
no doubt, and it's an lfor big corporate types. I mean,
it just kind of is. It'sone of those things too, which
is good. If you're divided ona group of people that could be divided
on politics, I don't see unlessyou are the head of a big corporation,

(19:03):
if you're an everyday working man,like you know, all of us
and most of the people that arelistening to us right now, I don't
see how. I don't see howyou would butt heads on this issue.
Now. It's a pretty common thingthat, yeah, we want to I
want more earning power. I wantflexibility. I want to be able to
leave my job if I'm unhappy andbe able to take another job in the
city that I live in. Yes, but I'll say this. My mom's

(19:26):
in town and staying with me,and I told her this, I'm like,
and this affects me, you know, affects us, and it does
affect radio and television and a lotmore people than you would guess. Obviously,
you apply it to yourself. Everyonedoes. I told her, She's
like, that sounds great, youknow. But then once it, you
know, hit her that this isunder this administration. I would imagine by

(19:47):
the time she has a twenty fourhour news cycle, she'll have a list
of reasons why this is not fairand shouldn't be the case, which sucks,
you know. But look, thetruth is, I've not done a
lot of research. I read theheadlines and I'm like, it feels like
a win for workers. It definitelyis a win for us in this job,
because yes, no could be supplyand radio where you would have to

(20:07):
wait many, many months depending onhow long years is to go do what
you do without bringing, yeah,without bringing you know, a political bias
into it. I'd love to hearthe other side. I'd love to hear
how this is a negative thing.And I've yet to read anything outside of
the mouthpieces for giant corporations that reallysay anything against this that makes any sense

(20:33):
to me. The two I heardwere sort of what you said, which
was, you know, a companyspends all this time training someone, teaching
them, and then now that someonecan turn their back on the company instantly
and then work and possibly and youknow, they frame it as take that
proprietary information to their competition or starttheir own business and screw the people who

(20:55):
invest the time and money. Andthen which I agree with, which is
one of the downshops and not necessarilyfair, but a lot of unfair things
happen, and it's always in thedirection of the big guy, very rarely
the little guy, So I supportthat. And the other one is that,
hey, when you sign a contract, you should live by you know,
that's what you should do, andthen you probably will hear the Hey,
I had a noncompete, much likethe student debt relief. Hey,

(21:18):
I agreed to that, and Ipaid off all my things, so no
one else should ever, you know, get that deal. Even though it's
almost all interest rates. It's notactually the debt that you are paying,
it a loan that you got,you know, it's all this interesting crease.
So whatever, I don't know,I just know it affects us.
This is good news for us.It affects a lot of jobs. Here's
one only maybe my Twitter algorithm whichexpose him A bunch of wrestling fans.

(21:42):
We're like, oh my god,how does this affect wrestling and everything's wrestling
as we know, Daddy, Andit does. Now if you have someone
on ae W that you like andthey quit and they can't come to WWE,
now once this is through, theycan. It just affects a lot
of random things that you think ofthat that will I think, I think

(22:03):
make everything a little bit better,but it should drum up a lot of
money, a lot of employee churn, and a lot of opportunities for employees.
It could end up, you know, being drawn out in courts.
It could end it could land atthe feet of the Supreme Court. I
don't know. Yeah, I've reada lot of different things. But I
saw the Commission of the FTC orthe chairman chairwoman in this case and she's

(22:26):
like, look, just read thelaw. This falls squarely onto us.
We have the ability to make thisdecision, and we did. Okay,
so we'll see. But anyway,I guarantee that effects either who's ever listening
or someone one degree away from me, because thirty million Americans affected by the
decision by the FTC to get ridof non competes just yesterday. All Right,
it's Danny and Mikey, no Kevy. He's in the air. He's

(22:48):
bringing his hot buns to Italian buns, sticky buns back to us right now,
and he'll be on the show withus tomorrow. Time to jump into
it, man, because that wastechnically the most important thing in the world
world, but the most important thingin the world in our world. So
you're fighting Dallas Mavericks, who becamethe first Western Conference team to get a
road win in these playoffs yet,and it was a damn good one.

(23:11):
Let's talk a little MAVs hoops andsee what else we can get into next.
On the ninety seven, The Freak