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[rubik's dude]

It's not legal in the US.

1709. Joint Statement -- Parts C And D. Definitions -- "Trafficking" -- "Counterfeit Marks"

This is archived content from the U.S. Department of Justice website. The information here may be outdated and links may no longer function. Please contact webmaster@usdoj.gov if you have any questions about the archive site.

www.justice.gov

Thus it is not a crime under this act for an individual knowingly to purchase goods bearing counterfeit marks, if the purchase is for the individual's personal use.

 

[Toons]

I get where you're coming from dawg, but you're only looking at this in terms of short-term costs to American companies. The big picture is that for the first time in history, the U.S. is facing real global competition. During the Cold War, America's rivals were rebuilding from ruin. Now? China is an economic Mike Tyson bustin our shit, Africa is aligning with BRICS while hitting us with Floyd Mayweather level dodges, and global trade networks are as much U.S. centric as Basket Ball is a white only sport these days. Kna mean?

That's why Trump is using tariffs, it's not really about postal procedures or one loophole, they're about slowing down the flood of imports that's been hollowing out U.S. industry while competitors build leverage. Was the 30-day rollout sloppy? fuck yeah! But the tariffs that caused the disruption is about adjusting to a world where America is no longer the only dealer on the block.

You can't even the playing field of competition just by hampering everyone else's access. You have to actually get better at stuff on your own to continue competing.

In other words, the influx of goods isn't the core issue but our inefficiency and lackadaisical approach to making our own goods is a bigger problem. One that tarriffs won't solve.

You solve that with education, and payinf actual decent wages. with establishing a baseline of working Americans capable of competing with foreign equivalents. And guess who's been attacking teachers and universities this entire time? Or who's party has been against pretty much any wage increases? It all goes hand in hand.

You get in what you put out

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

1709. Joint Statement -- Parts C And D. Definitions -- "Trafficking" -- "Counterfeit Marks"

This is archived content from the U.S. Department of Justice website. The information here may be outdated and links may no longer function. Please contact webmaster@usdoj.gov if you have any questions about the archive site.

www.justice.gov

It's illegal to sell them. Even the intermediaries (eg. if Etsy has listings for Chinese trash knockoffs) can be held legally responsible if proven to know about it. Even representing them on your site as available to buy overseas is potentially a crime.

And all counterfeit items can be seized at the border if found, no matter whose personal use it is for.

So you're actually trying to support a situation in which Chinese trash companies can sell something that is a crime to sell in the US by skirting the loophole. And then shrug when that impacts actual decent businesses.

 

[Liljagare]

It's illegal to sell them. Even the intermediaries (eg. if Etsy has listings for Chinese trash knockoffs) can be held legally responsible if proven to know about it. Even representing them on your site as available to buy overseas is potentially a crime.

And all counterfeit items can be seized at the border if found, no matter whose personal use it is for.

So you're actually trying to support a situation in which Chinese trash companies can sell something that is a crime to sell in the US by skirting the loophole. And then shrug when that impacts actual decent businesses.

You are rather ignorant on how it works in the real world? The rules only work if someone actually upholds them.

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

You are rather ignorant on how it works in the real world?

Aha, you already said you that even the very-vanilla / middle of the road NPR article was nonsense, after saving face about not even knowing the conversation was about de minimis vs tariffs, and now you're on a new strategy. You probably also don't know that "how it works" now is a very recent set of conditions largely sparked by the change to raise de minimis so high at end of Obama's last term, which is well known to have created the massive growth of trash sites like Wish, Temu, etc. So I do know how things work in the market and where we are in 2025 with the decade that led up to it, and no, please don't waste our time with your attempt to rescue your narrative with some apology for the "real world" use cases.

 

[rubik's dude]

It's illegal to sell them.

Yes, but I wasn't talking about selling them, was I? You said it wasn't a valid consumer choice to buy knockoffs, but the law clearly states that it is, whether it's done knowingly or unknowingly.

De minimis didn't kill that guy's business, the consumers did, either because they were too cheap or ignorant.

 

[Liljagare]

Aha, you already said you that even the very-vanilla / middle of the road NPR article was nonsense, after saving face about not even knowing the conversation was about de minimis vs tariffs, and now you're on a new strategy. You probably also don't know that "how it works" now is a very recent set of conditions largely sparked by the change to raise de minimis so high at end of Obama's last term, which is well known to have created the massive growth of trash sites like Wish, Temu, etc. So I do know how things work in the market and where we are in 2025 with the decade that led up to it, and no, please don't waste our time with your attempt to rescue your narrative with some apology for the "real world" use cases.

Yet, all of that is side skirted now?

Saving face stuff, unsure what you are mumbling about in your rant there.

Your rant doesn't make much sense. Maybe that is why you have dry counties in the US?

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

Yes, but I wasn't talking about selling them, was I? You said it wasn't a valid consumer choice to buy knockoffs, but the law clearly states that it is, whether it's done knowingly or unknowingly.

De minimis didn't kill that guy's business, the consumers did, either because they were too cheap or ignorant.

That position is so incoherent that it's impossible to take it seriously. It's not a valid consumer choice to buy goods that can't be legally sold. It isn't prosecuted on buyer side, due to the difficulty of doing so, but at the seller level of course.

But no, it's not an acceptable state of affairs when any counterfeits are being allowed into circulation at all. It's always a crime that is taking place, because one half the equation (seller or importer) is necessarily committing a prosecutable crime.

 

[Liljagare]

That position is so incoherent that it's impossible to take it seriously. It's not a valid consumer choice to buy goods that can't be legally sold. It isn't prosecuted on buyer side, due to the difficulty of doing so, but at the seller level of course.

But no, it's not an acceptable state of affairs when any counterfeits are being allowed into circulation at all. It's always a crime that is taking place, because one half the equation (seller or importer) is necessarily committing a prosecutable crime.

Why do you live in a dry county? Because we have insane people in the county...

 

[rubik's dude]

It's not a valid consumer choice to buy goods that can't be legally sold.

Again, valid by who's definition?

Consumers have no legal obligation to purchase authentic merchandise, but they are free to legally buy counterfeits.

You can be morally opposed to that all you want, but nobody's putting a gun to a consumer's head and telling them to buy a cheap knockoff over the original. It's their choice, and a legal one at that.

 

[Unknown?]

You can't even the playing field of competition just by hampering everyone else's access. You have to actually get better at stuff on your own to continue competing.

In other words, the influx of goods isn't the core issue but our inefficiency and lackadaisical approach to making our own goods is a bigger problem. One that tarriffs won't solve.

You solve that with education, and payinf actual decent wages. with establishing a baseline of working Americans capable of competing with foreign equivalents. And guess who's been attacking teachers and universities this entire time? Or who's party has been against pretty much any wage increases? It all goes hand in hand.

You get in what you put out

The education system in the US is terrible. K-12 doesn't teach you anything about becoming a functioning adult in society and pushes college/university scams. College/universities make you take four years for a degree that could be done in 1 or 2 years max, because they want that sweet sweet tuition and in most cases the degrees they offer are useless in the real world. Especially if you go to university for a degree in economics, even a Harvard professor in economics knows nothing about how our monetary system operates and couldn't tell you how dollars are created.

 

[kruis]

The tariffs farce continues.

US court rules many of Trump's global tariffs are illegal

The tariffs can remain in place until mid-October to allow the Trump administration time to request the Supreme Court take up the case.

www.bbc.com

A US appeals court has ruled that most tariffs issued by US President Donald Trump are illegal, setting up a potential legal showdown that could upend his foreign policy agenda.

The ruling affects Trump's "reciprocal" tariffs, imposed on most countries around the world, as well as other tariffs slapped on China, Mexico and Canada.

In a 7-4 decision, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected Trump's argument that the tariffs were permitted under an emergency economic powers act, calling them "invalid as contrary to law".

The ruling will not take effect until 14 October to give the administration time to ask the Supreme Court to take up the case.

Trump criticised the court and its ruling on Truth Social, saying: "If allowed to stand, this Decision would literally destroy the United States of America."

"Today a Highly Partisan Appeals Court incorrectly said that our Tariffs should be removed, but they know the United States of America will win in the end," he wrote.

"If these Tariffs ever went away, it would be a total disaster for the Country. It would make us financially weak, and we have to be strong."

He added that other countries have imposed tariffs on the US, and predicted that the decision would be overturned by the Supreme Court.

Trump had justified the tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which gives the president the power to act against "unusual and extraordinary" threats.

Trump has declared a national emergency on trade, arguing that a trade imbalance is harmful to US national security. But the court ruled that imposing tariffs is not within the president's mandate, and that they are "a core Congressional power".

 

[Plies]

The tariffs farce continues.

US court rules many of Trump's global tariffs are illegal

The tariffs can remain in place until mid-October to allow the Trump administration time to request the Supreme Court take up the case.

www.bbc.com

A US appeals court has ruled that most tariffs issued by US President Donald Trump are illegal, setting up a potential legal showdown that could upend his foreign policy agenda.

The ruling affects Trump's "reciprocal" tariffs, imposed on most countries around the world, as well as other tariffs slapped on China, Mexico and Canada.

In a 7-4 decision, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected Trump's argument that the tariffs were permitted under an emergency economic powers act, calling them "invalid as contrary to law".

The ruling will not take effect until 14 October to give the administration time to ask the Supreme Court to take up the case.

Trump criticised the court and its ruling on Truth Social, saying: "If allowed to stand, this Decision would literally destroy the United States of America."

"Today a Highly Partisan Appeals Court incorrectly said that our Tariffs should be removed, but they know the United States of America will win in the end," he wrote.

"If these Tariffs ever went away, it would be a total disaster for the Country. It would make us financially weak, and we have to be strong."

He added that other countries have imposed tariffs on the US, and predicted that the decision would be overturned by the Supreme Court.

Trump had justified the tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which gives the president the power to act against "unusual and extraordinary" threats.

Trump has declared a national emergency on trade, arguing that a trade imbalance is harmful to US national security. But the court ruled that imposing tariffs is not within the president's mandate, and that they are "a core Congressional power".

 

[StreetsofBeige]

The education system in the US is terrible. K-12 doesn't teach you anything about becoming a functioning adult in society and pushes college/university scams. College/universities make you take four years for a degree that could be done in 1 or 2 years max, because they want that sweet sweet tuition and in most cases the degrees they offer are useless in the real world. Especially if you go to university for a degree in economics, even a Harvard professor in economics knows nothing about how our monetary system operates and couldn't tell you how dollars are created.

I dont think Canada is much different. But I dont have kids so not sure what it's like aside from hearing from my bro's kids how stupid some of the content is and how the math is literally 1-2 grades dumber than when we were kids. They showed us what they were doing in math class years ago and it was so basic I was doing this stuff younger. The dumbest was the "Japanese style math" how to do multiplication drawing tic tac toe charts. Was retarded. I told them dont do it that way because you'll look stupid when you get older doing math drawing giant charts just to multiply numbers. Do it this way.

Imagine being a grown adult in a board room meeting and you got to multiply some numbers. You get out a big piece of paper and draw criss crossing lines and count all the intersections like a retard in front of people.

I'll always find it amazing how schools can somehow push so many shotty topics most people will never use, but some things like budgeting, investing, and any life skills arent taught. Maybe they are now, but they surely werent when I did school. That kind of stuff is learned on your own or hope your parents or older siblings can tell you what to do. But the school sure pumps a lot of money into kids learning quadradic equations and different types of clouds in geography class. All useless stuff. If someone is that interested in obscure content like that, have them do it in optional classes, not mandatory ones.

They dont even cater the into to be more relevant or interesting. If a math teacher is going to teach math, cant you at least try to do in involving things kids care about like tech or games or sports etc... But these numbnut teachers just follow the book to a T. I remember in physics class shit like calculate the rate of speed of a kite flying at this speed and at this angle. Whatever it was why would I care about a kite in grade 11?

The best classes I had were in grad school. The university profs were mostly idiots, but the grad profs who all seemed to have working experience (some of them worked during the day and did night class for us) were awesome.

You could tell they didnt even follow the agenda and taught their own thing. And among the best things we all learned was one prof gave us a prep session how to make effective powerpoints. So you should do it this way.... topic header, not too much clustered info.... footnotes etc..... Make sure you got an agenda page, concluding page yada yada.

Never had any prof tell us how to make effective slide presentations ever until that class. I remember he worked during the day and would be late half the time getting to our evening class as he came from work.

 

[Unknown?]

I dont think Canada is much different. But I dont have kids so not sure what it's like aside from hearing from my bro's kids how stupid some of the content is and how the math is literally 1-2 grades dumber than when we were kids. They showed us what they were doing in math class years ago and it was so basic I was doing this stuff younger. The dumbest was the "Japanese style math" how to do multiplication drawing tic tac toe charts. Was retarded. I told them dont do it that way because you'll look stupid when you get older doing math drawing giant charts just to multiply numbers. Do it this way.

Imagine being a grown adult in a board room meeting and you got to multiply some numbers. You get out a big piece of paper and draw criss crossing lines and count all the intersections like a retard in front of people.

I'll always find it amazing how schools can somehow push so many shotty topics most people will never use, but some things like budgeting, investing, and any life skills arent taught. Maybe they are now, but they surely werent when I did school. That kind of stuff is learned on your own or hope your parents or older siblings can tell you what to do. But the school sure pumps a lot of money into kids learning quadradic equations and different types of clouds in geography class. All useless stuff. If someone is that interested in obscure content like that, have them do it in optional classes, not mandatory ones.

They dont even cater the into to be more relevant or interesting. If a math teacher is going to teach math, cant you at least try to do in involving things kids care about like tech or games or sports etc... But these numbnut teachers just follow the book to a T.

The best classes I had were in grad school. The university profs were mostly idiots, but the grad profs who all seemed to have working experience (some of them worked during the day and did night class for us) were awesome.

You could tell they didnt even follow the agenda and taught their own thing. And among the best things we all learned was one prof gave us a prep session how to make effective powerpoints. So you should do it this way.... topic header, not too much clustered info.... footnotes etc..... Make sure you got an agenda page, concluding page yada yada.

Never had any prof tell us how to make effective slide presentations ever until that class. I remember he worked during the day and would be late half the time getting to our evening class as he came from work.

It's still like that here in California and the kids are 2-4 grade levels behind. The ONLY good thing now rather than when I went to school is they aren't pushing college 100%. Now they will tell kids about trade school.

I went to trade school and now I make more than the teachers. I didn't go until my late 20s though, wish I had known about it right out of high school.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

It's still like that here in California and the kids are 2-4 grade levels behind. The ONLY good thing now rather than when I went to school is they aren't pushing college 100%. Now they will tell kids about trade school.

I went to trade school and now I make more than the teachers. I didn't go until my late 20s though, wish I had known about it right out of high school.

I remember in my high school (avg suburban school with a mix of people) they never pushed trades ever. This was the 90s. It was all about graduating and applying to college or university with your best grades. And they'd hand out booklets from all the key ones in the country. So grab the ones you were interested in as there was no internet at the time to check and apply yourself online. It was all a manual process. Our school had one industrial arts kind of class to do shop with all the gear and tools. I highly doubt they had any dog and pony shows for going to trade school.

 

[Unknown?]

The tariffs farce continues.

US court rules many of Trump's global tariffs are illegal

The tariffs can remain in place until mid-October to allow the Trump administration time to request the Supreme Court take up the case.

www.bbc.com

A US appeals court has ruled that most tariffs issued by US President Donald Trump are illegal, setting up a potential legal showdown that could upend his foreign policy agenda.

The ruling affects Trump's "reciprocal" tariffs, imposed on most countries around the world, as well as other tariffs slapped on China, Mexico and Canada.

In a 7-4 decision, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected Trump's argument that the tariffs were permitted under an emergency economic powers act, calling them "invalid as contrary to law".

The ruling will not take effect until 14 October to give the administration time to ask the Supreme Court to take up the case.

Trump criticised the court and its ruling on Truth Social, saying: "If allowed to stand, this Decision would literally destroy the United States of America."

"Today a Highly Partisan Appeals Court incorrectly said that our Tariffs should be removed, but they know the United States of America will win in the end," he wrote.

"If these Tariffs ever went away, it would be a total disaster for the Country. It would make us financially weak, and we have to be strong."

He added that other countries have imposed tariffs on the US, and predicted that the decision would be overturned by the Supreme Court.

Trump had justified the tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which gives the president the power to act against "unusual and extraordinary" threats.

Trump has declared a national emergency on trade, arguing that a trade imbalance is harmful to US national security. But the court ruled that imposing tariffs is not within the president's mandate, and that they are "a core Congressional power".

I don't care for tariffs but if it gets rid of the unconstitutional and farcical income tax like Trump has said he wants to do, then I am all for it. The income tax is one of the most evil taxes out there.

 

[Wilhelm_85]

Nm, there is no point. (People still seem to think that tariffs are paid by the delivering/exporting country)..

It depends and you know that, but you're being weirdly smug and won't admit it.

 

[Idleyes]

Nothing with tariffs helps with a pirate market, lol..

The reply you're responding to literally says: 'I'd prefer country-specific restrictions, stronger IP and customs enforcement, and seller accountability.' So why would you conclude that I said tariffs are the answer to the pirate market?

Oh, never mind. I forgot this is;

 

[daffyduck]

It depends and you know that, but you're being weirdly smug and won't admit it.

By and large, it will be Americans who are paying.

 

[Rentahamster]

This is certainly not the case; you have relied exclusively in your posts on attempts to assign motive to the powers behind tarrifs etc, rather than staying in the factual realm of policy debate.

I mean, this is your only substantive post so far, and it is nothing but a hilarious "2004 wants its politics back" misreading of the coalitions involved:


This is simply a confusion; if fact, with regard to the tariffs, there is a heated war between the old globalize/outsource forces of market ideology (Republican part of 20 years ago) and the newer groups that have fought to stand their ground building a worker-oriented, anti-global / protectionist set of policies (think tanks like American Compass). The former group wants nothing more than to have Trump abandon all tariff, protectionist, and interventionist measures.

This shows a complete misunderstanding of the trajectory of every major group involved, enough that it's not really possible for you to build out coherent views on this basis.

I'm not the one spinning a tale of division amongst the Republicans when it is an objective fact that nearly all of them vote with the President. How do you explain how almost all of them voted for President Trump's BBB? And you can't say he won them over. It was like this in the beginning too.

Republicans In Congress Have Been Very Loyal To Trump. Will It Last?

It’s the first day of business for the newly sworn-in 116th Congress, and House Democrats have already held several votes — on a bill to fund the government an…

fivethirtyeight.com

Last session, House Republicans, then in the majority, were largely aligned with Trump — very few broke ranks.

While it's unclear how voting patterns will shift in the new Congress, what is particularly striking is just how effective Trump has been in securing party loyalty in the first two years of his presidency. As you can see in the chart below, Senate Democrats didn't coalesce as neatly around Obama during his first two years in office as Senate Republicans did around Trump.

When I say you're spinning the facts to fit your narrative it's because you're trying to say that President Trump is somehow on the same level as Bernie Sanders which is not accurate at all. You are taking the few similarities they do share and overextrapolating that into something else entirely.

In ratio, one would go back and see that Bernie had an even higher percentage of his funding from small, but that's a bit misleading even... in absolute terms, he achieved small donations from a dramatically smaller total number of people. It's just that his campaign never reached the stage to be taken fully seriously so he never added the big donor funds on top to topple that ratio. It's simply dishonest to pretend the Trump revolution was not as fully, or even more fully populist than anything Sanders has achieved so far in his trajectory in public life.

Like this. This isn't misleading. It's facts. You're trying to spin this into fitting your narrative that President Trump is as much for the working class as Bernie is.

https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate?id=n00000528

https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate?id=n00023864

Bernie's small donor total is $134,669,942. 58% of his total raised, a majority.

President Trump's small donor total is $86,749,927. 26% of his total raised, a minority.

Your argument is trying to dismiss the facts by taking into account that Bernie never made it into the general election, but if we take your line of reasoning, then we would assume that President Trump would have more small donation support than Kamala Harris, right?

https://www.opensecrets.org/2024-presidential-race/small-donors?curr=A&show=P

No. Harris is at $467,965,591 (41%), Trump is at $133,553,173 (29%).

However, in 2020, Biden is at $406,562,408 (39%), Trump is at $378,084,012 (49%). Is that a data point in your favor? Not really because you've already used the "absolute numbers" argument to spin why Trump had more populist support than Bernie in 2016, so that doesn't work here.

Does this sound like the donor-candidate relationship of a populist to you?

Watch from 46:47 until 51:48. I timestamped it for you.



Notice how the Republican politician speaking next tries to dismiss the talk about who got money from what, which is rich, coming from a former lobbyist turned politician whose small donor contribution percentage is 2%.

 

[Rentahamster]

Bro have you just ignored the entire last decade of American politics when Trump completely reshaped the Republican Party into a populist party and all of the capitalists have fled to the Democrats?

I have not. I am analyzing politicians' words vs. their actions as carefully as I can.

How can the Democratic Party be where all the capitalists have fled to when President Trump himself calls them socialists and communists all the time? I don't think that would be the first line of attack from an actual anti-capitalist.

 

[Blade2.0]

Bro have you just ignored the entire last decade of American politics when Trump completely reshaped the Republican Party into a populist party and all of the capitalists have fled to the Democrats?

Please explain how getting rid of social safety nets and giving the rich bigger tax breaks is populist. I don't see it.

 

[Paltheos]

Trump criticised the court and its ruling on Truth Social, saying: "If allowed to stand, this Decision would literally destroy the United States of America."

lol
I haven't kept up on the hyperbole game, but is there an extreme beyond that?

I don't care for tariffs but if it gets rid of the unconstitutional and farcical income tax like Trump has said he wants to do, then I am all for it. The income tax is one of the most evil taxes out there.

16th Amendment to the US Constitution:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Unless you've got some spiel queued about how the current form of taxation is unfair or whatever, but if so just say that. Phrasing it like this does no good.