Grandstanding against the ACA again and again is hardly productive. So is shutting down the gov't.

Why aren't employers supposed to compete for employees just as employees are expected to compete for jobs?

With non-compete clauses, too many employees are boxed into their current jobs because they are prevented from using their talents somewhere else.

The employers insert these clauses so they don't have to work to keep the employees the old-fashioned way -- with good benefits and salaries.

and as an observer in at least a half-dozen others in my former role in corporate HR, I can tell you that they aren't as difficult to beat as some will tell you they are. They are also typically only used in higher-level roles, most often at VP and above, or when an employee has direct and material access to highly proprietary info or process. There are usually rather generous "parting gifts" involved in those circumstances. One exec that I worked with last autumn got eighteen months salary and the non-compete voided. I personally hate the idea of non-competes and usually counsel corporate clients not to bother with them. They can be much more trouble than they're worth, on both sides.

And an employee might not even realize she's bound by one -- unless a job offer gets withdrawn.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/business/noncompete-clauses-increasingly-pop-up-in-array-of-jobs.html?_r=0

BOSTON — Colette Buser couldn’t understand why a summer camp withdrew its offer for her to work there this year.

After all, the 19-year-old college student had worked as a counselor the three previous summers at a nearby Linx-branded camp in Wellesley, Mass. But the company balked at hiring her because it feared that Linx would sue to enforce a noncompete clause tucked into Ms. Buser’s 2013 summer employment contract. Her father, Cimarron Buser, testified before Massachusetts state lawmakers last month that his daughter had no idea that she had agreed to such restrictions, which in this case forbade her for one year from working at a competing camp within 10 miles of any of Linx’s more than 30 locations in Wellesley and neighboring Natick. “This was the type of example you could hardly believe,” Mr. Buser (pronounced BOO-ser) said in an interview.

The intention of these kinds of agreements has (had) always been to protect companies from having their executives spill secrets in exchange for big payoffs. Again, they usually aren't that difficult to defeat, but you need to be able to hire an attorney to help you through the process. That's easy enough to do if you're a company exec, but not so much if you're a camp counselor. This shift seems designed to do nothing less than enslave. Sick, sick, sick. And infuriating. Most of the work I do is at higher levels, so seeing this creep in at hourly/low level/service jobs is stunning.

To tell someone they can't work in their own field for 6 months, a year, or even longer is unconscionable.

Wages have not kept up with productivity since the 1970's. That is another argument for an increase in the minimum wage, I would think?

From earlier in the interview:

Can't recall exactly where I saw it, but it was either here on DU or on Huffington Post. I'd sure like to see a 270% increase in my earnings, if that's what the clown is suggesting. ('Course not!)

has nearly doubled since 1979, and that trend has massively intensified:

I would like to hear his opinion on this productivity chart.

on 'faith-based' economics versus real world free markets, blah, blah, blah...