Americans who slap $1 pricetags on their used possessions at garage sales or bazaar events risk being slapped with fines of up to $15 million, thanks to a new government campaign.
Those who resell recalled children’s products are not only breaking the law, they are putting children’s lives at risk,” said CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum. “Resale stores should make safety their business and check for recalled products and hazards to children.”
In order to comply, stores, flea markets, charities and individuals selling used goods — in person or online — are expected to consult the commission’s 24-page Handbook for Resale Stores and Product Resellers (pdf) and its Web site for a breakdown of what they can’t sell.
Violators caught selling anything on the enormous list face fines of up to $100,000 per infraction and up to $15 million for a related series of infractions.
But FOX News Legal Analyst Bob Massi says the law makes no distinction for families and small resellers.
It’s absurd when nanny-state bureaucrats want to regulate things we buy at mom-and-pop shops or second-hand stores,” Wes Benedict, executive director of the Libertarian National Committee, told FOXNews.com. “Consumer product safety is best left to a free market where suppliers can compete based on reputation and track records. American grown-ups aren’t stupid, and they know they need to be careful about what they buy for their children from complete strangers at no-name stores.”
I can’t believe this….
Are we SO stupid that we can’t figure out ANYTHING for ourselves?
Maybe this is why they’ve dumbed down our kids in schools…to get is ready for the complete takeover.
Well, I don’t happen to have 15 mil at the time so I guess it’s a good thing they are building a federal prison about 5 miles north of my house as we speak.
Gotta raise funds somehow to pay for all the c*** that Congress spends our tax dollars on (stimulus, healthcare, their pensions…)
Did you read the handbook that you linked to? This law was passed in Aug. 2008, which makes it Bush’s law. Also, it is talking about fines for selling, unsafe (lead paint, poisonous, preschool toys with tiny, swallowable parts,etc.) and recalled products. Yes, so if you sell a dangerous product, and someone gets hurt, don’t you think you should pay a fine?
My question is, how the HECK did our parents manage to avoid killing us, or letting us get maimed, without all these WONDERFUL government restrictions and rules?
I feel so BLESSED to have lived this long.
What would we have EVER done if the government had not stepped in NOW?
The law at its base is a good thing but it is in the hands of dangerous people. There are those who would genuinely use it to protect people and those who would use it to raise revenues. These people, rather than seek out things that should not be resold, they will enter a sale and will not leave until they have found, or created, their quota of the infractions. A truly caring inspector would say “You shouldn’t sell this. Get it out of here and I’ll pretend I didn’t see it.” Not under this man.
One time instructions to a new MIOSHA (Michigan’s answer to OSHA) inspector: That company can afford a quarter of million in losses. Find things to fine them for that add up to that much and then report back here.
And how far back on product recalls should one be liable for?
How about for companies that no longer exist?
How about for children’s books that have a miniscule amount of lead based ink? Reselling those will get you a hefty fine, too, although no child has ever been witnessed to have problems with the material…
The concept of buying something used is: ‘as-is’ and you take the risk unless those doing the selling can put some kind of guarantee behind it. If I buy a used computer hard drive and it goes belly up in a day, there is very little I can do about it. If its circuitry was bad and burns my house down? Go after the person who sold it USED? How on earth could they KNOW?
And there will be federal inspectors for garage sales, that has already been in the works for awhile.
As for the Bush Administration: I don’t like Kelo, I detest Raich, NCLB is a dead loss, I didn’t like increasing Medicare ‘help’ and has nearly made it insolvent in no time, no one can bring SSN into getting into a solvent state so it will go belly up in a few years, and the man signed BCRA which was insane as HE disagreed with it and yet HE signed it. But then I thought those things at the time and said so. He was not serious about getting the Nation on a war footing and we are paying dearly for that. Soon we will have Iran and NoKo with nuclear tipped missiles, with Syria joining the fun, and Pakistan disintegrating. We have not chased down al Qaeda and its supporters on a global basis.
GWB did what he could with limited vision and outlook, and the current nitwit in chief is looking to make the world a far more dangerous place, if we survive the economic meltdown that is coming. But then Congress writes the laws, Presidents only get to sign or veto them. I place a ton of blame on Congress for declaring a set of wars it doesn’t want to fight, for making legislation that is horrific to liberty and for being ever so ready to hand out our hard earned tax dollars to political cronies. There is more than enough blame to go around in the blame game. Bad laws? Who wrote them? CONGRESS. The place to stop bad laws is not to write them…
AJ,
After reading your comments you should change your name to. “Ramblin On”.
Ranando – I am sorry that you do not like the way I talk about liberty and freedom without regards to parties, nor talking points, nor backing any political view. I find much I dislike in those set view types because they limit the goal of the greatest liberty for all Americans.
I do try and stay civil when presenting my views. That is hard work not to let my emotions rule me, but use them to guide me and see if they are well founded. I work that out, very often, as I type.
I state my positions so that they can be understood, and I know I do fail at that at many points. Yet I do my best not to attack individuals, to impugn honor and see what it is, exactly, that others are saying that I am so immensely unable to understand so as not to treat them unfairly. That is very hard to do, this remaining civil business at all costs so you can keep a steady aim and tell friend from enemy. It is very easy to be glib and insulting and gather enemies.
I prefer to state my positions and why I have them so as not to be insulting.
I prefer to gather friends who understand me.
Which is it that you are trying to gather?
What CRAP these federal regulations are!
I’ve had several yard sales and will likely have several more. No doubt I’ve been in violation and will be in violation.
Just how the hell is anyone supposed to keep up with all the rules of a federal bureaucracy?
Maybe this is why they’ve dumbed down our kids in schools…to get is ready for the complete takeover.
Yep.
AJ, One of the reasons I haven’t commented here much is because of a particular commenter who enjoys belittling other commenters. I totally enjoy your comments and especially the one today, so I had to respond. You have been right about a lot of things you have commented about in the past so you have my utmost respect. My concern for 2012 is the current crop of candidates we have ‘resurfacing’ such as Huckabee and Romney and I hope the Repubs in the House and Senate wake up and stop allowing moderates to ‘define’ us. I would vote for Romney over Huckabee, but even then I am sick of our only choices being people we aren’t sure won’t cow-tow to the left and water down great conservative ideas. I want to hear a candidate say we are a ‘Republic’ for a change.
I too respect AJ’s learned and thoughtful responses here on my blog. Let me, if I may, interject this about A Jacksonian:
I don’t have a fraction of the time available to me to investigate, research, invest, uncover and write the posts that he does. His position in Life now is such that he does possess this attribute. For this we should give thanks.
Couple his time management with his knowledge of history, his training, education and experience, and you have an individual that most people tend to gloss over simply because they lack the time to thoroughly read, digest and reflect upon his writings.
I would be the first person to place myself into that category.
But when I DO pay attention to his posts, his comments — and it takes me the better part of a day to do so — I can only then appreciate what it is that AJ brings to the Blogosphere table. And that is this:
An amazing, astounding, scholarly view of any number of current issues extant. I would submit that AJ could easily run his own country quite readily.
Okay, so his comments aren’t brief. Acknowledged.
But I still feel blessed that he reads me and takes the time to comment here.
I know we’re busy; you’re busy, I’m busy. But if you think he rambles then stop — and you’ll have to take, at MINIMUM, some HOURS to do so — to take some time to really reflect on what it is he writes.
In my opinion, if there is ONE blog that is “under-read” and “under-appreciated” — and COULD take the political professional world by storm — on ALL levels — it is A Jacksonian.
He could EASILY be a Powerhouse in the Blogosphere and the Political Talking Head Kingdom today on TV, on the internet, in print.
BZ
Couple his time management with his knowledge of history, his training, education and experience, and you have an individual that most people tend to gloss over simply because they lack the time to thoroughly read, digest and reflect upon his writings.
I would be the first person to place myself into that category.
Actually, BZ, you will have to settle for second. Or third. I beat you to it, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the first.
AJ’s writings have always been thorough, like his thought process, and succinct. Certainly not known for his brevity, AJ will ALWAYS be known for his insight and analysis.
Ranando, if you don’t like what AJ has to say, or how he says it, then do what most people do when they see YOUR name at the top of a comment – skip on down to the next one.
To All – I can post in no other way than I do. All of my postings be they commentary or blog posts are done ‘as-is’ with spelling and syntax errors galore. Often I research as I go trying to find the next ‘piece’ in any puzzle be it Syrian WMD complexes, workings of the Red Mafia, or how terrorist organizations interact with other organizations. I can ‘do’ quips, here and there, but they rarely do any justice to a topic.
I do not consider Ranando’s commentary to be an attack, although at first blush, it is. I don’t expect anyone to ever agree with me, and do not take that as a given. Nor do I take snippets out of context of what others say, but give them as full a context as I can do in my blog posts. Thus what I create is not pared down for a 6th grader to read, simplified for someone with only one minute to spend in reading, nor created with an express intent of ideology: if I find a topic of interest I take the reader on what I have done to research it and that can be tough, tough going as many organizations try to make connections between them as hard to find as possible. There is deliberate malice aforethought in how many business, political and criminal organizations present themselves and do their work, then hide behind glib and easy talking points that sound so very good… while containing to real substance and often lie by omission or comission in those talking points.
Yet I always start with simple things. My view is that complexity is created by many simple things acting together form a complex whole. It is the simplicity becoming complex that I try to examine, and not by reduction of the complex but by building up to it so each reader can see the pieces and the parts they play. You aren’t taught to think this way in any school, by any religion, by any philosophy and even in science it becomes, far too often, a last resort rather than a first practice.
I do my best to respect my readers. Their respect or lack of it is self-evident.
AJ: agreed. I don’t view it as an attack either. But I take it in context of a time issue. I WISH I had the time to read and digest each and every sentence you write. They are researched to the Nth Degree. Your perceived “weakness” is actually your STRENGTH — which is the depth and breadth of your writings.
The failure(s) is mine and not yours. That is why I am grateful that you comment here, but that I don’t quite reciprocate nearly in kind on YOUR blog. Because it takes ME, a clearly base moron, so darned LONG to completely analyze and consider your postings. Plus, I must fully admit, because I am still on a damnable “dial-up” my life is held hostage by the time required to visit each and every link and blog and point.
BZ