To ban or not to ban

Today, we’re talking about two different kinds of bans. As expected, President Joe Biden signed the TikTok sell-or-ban bill. But first, guest host Meghan McCarty Carino breaks down the Federal Trade Commission’s decision to ban noncompete agreements and their impact on workers and innovation. Plus, we’ll smile about Emily Dickinson and her newfound love of exclamation points!!! And how “old” is “old”?

Here’s everything we talked about today:

• “Business Groups Race to Block FTC’s Ban on Noncompete Agreements” from The Wall Street Journal
• “FTC Bans Noncompete Agreements That Restrict Job Switching” from The Wall Street Journal
• “Did California’s Noncompete Ban Fuel Silicon Valley Innovation?” from Bloomberg Law
• “Banning Noncompetes Is Good for Innovation” from Harvard Business Review
• “TikTok may be banned in the US. Here’s what happened when India did it” from The Associated Press
• “U.S. Approves Sale of Dating App Whose Owners Were Probed by National Security Officials” from The Wall Street Journal
• “Grindr sold by Chinese owner after US raised national security concerns” from TechCrunch
• “People think ‘old age’ starts later than it used to, study finds” from the American Psychological Association
• “Eternity Only Will Answer” from Poetry Foundation

Want more Make Me Smart in your life? Sign up for our newsletter at marketplace.org/smarter.