Overtime Rule Fate to Be Decided in Overtime
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Editor's Note: I'm taking tomorrow morning off from blogging. Happy
Thanksgiving!
About a month ago, I took
note of a "little dictator" who quite happily supported an
overtime regulation that was due to kick in on December 1 -- but then
whined about it as soon as she learned she would have to start
punching in and out of work. As it turns out, that
rule has been put on hold:
"Due to the approaching effective date of the Final Rule, the Court's ability to render a meaningful decision on the merits is in jeopardy," [Obama appointee Amos Mazzant] wrote. "A preliminary injunction preserves the status quo while the Court determines the department's authority to make the Final Rule as well as the Final Rule's validity."The Hill elaborates further that it is quite possible that President-elect Trump will have the opportunity to scrap the rule altogether.
The rule would have extended overtime pay to more than 4 million workers starting Dec. 1. It would have required employers to pay overtime to most salaried workers who earn less than $47,476 annually, a much higher threshold than the current annual salary limit of $23,660.
While I would welcome such a development, it is worth considering how much time even the prospect of it has surely wasted, as affected businesses and employees have had to gear up for it. And, until and unless the government begins consistently respecting the right of consenting adults to contract with each other, businessmen will always have the prospect of being ordered around hanging over their heads. Trump may alleviate some of the more onerous regulations, but he is not one to solve this problem. That would require a principled charge against regulations as such.
-- CAV
P.S. My latest column, "In Defense of a Strong U.S. Patent System," now appears at RealClear Markets.
3 comments:
Yo, Gus, Happy Thanksgiving! In the broad spirit of the holiday (though not the holiday proper), here's my favorite piece of thanksgiving (not Thanksgiving) music, Ralph Vaughan Williams' "A Song of Thanksgiving." It was commissioned by the BBC to celebrate victory in World War II, and it manages to do that in spades. Oh, and the soft bright ending is just perfect. It's one piece I always listen to on Thanksgiving.
Thanks, and to repay the music with even more Lovecraftian humor from McSweeney's, take a gander at, "How to Brine a Turkey, by H.P. Lovecraft."
The following quote I am posting on behalf of Snedcat, who was unable to post it. Given my own trouble posting comments to my own blog even when logged on any time I use HTML markup, I think Google's spam-catching software is in need of a tweak or two. Note: I had to remove URLs just to get this to post. That's ridiculous, given that (1) Commenters have to get through captchas, and (2) I moderate those that do.
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And in return, enjoy some "Southern Fried Cthulhu" for Thanksgiving! It's like non-vegetarian tofurky from another dimension! I might have sent you the link before; I don't remember how I stumbled across the story, but it's a lot of fun. (Liberty Island is definitely a site for right-wingers, but, sadly, I wasn't too taken with any of the other offerings I sampled there.)
In fact, by coincidence I will be reading some Lovecraft over Thanksgiving break. I've read all of his solo stories more than once but none of his collaborations -- he did about a dozen of (I gather) very variable quality. I got the latest Cthulhu Mythos megapack, which contains some of the collaborations and a generous helping of stories by his friends, disciples, and (so to speak) protégés that I hadn't been able to find before. Right now I'm reading what is considered his best collaboration, "The Mound," started by Zelia Bishop and fleshed out, fattenhttps://www.blogger.com/comment.doed, and polished by HPL; it's supposed to be about on par with "At the Mountains of Madness" and "The Colour out of Space." On the other hand, the megapack also contains the notorious "Medusa's Coils," also started by Zelia Bishop, in which the last sentence reveals the ULTIMATE HORROR that the evil bewitching woman was, Heaven forfend, "a negress." Um, yeah. Not scary, dudes. Bored now. (Or as I like to say, "Meh, needs more shoggoth.")
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