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Ohio Wants eBayers to Post $50k Bond
MacDork writes "CNNMoney posted a short article this morning about new Ohio regulations set to become effective May 2 this year. If you are in the state and selling on eBay, you will need to pay $200 for a license and post a $50,000 bond or face possible fines and jail time. Getting the license also requires a one-year apprenticeship. When asked to which eBay users this bill applied, the bill's author, Larry Mumper responded with these very specific guidelines.... "It certainly will not apply to the casual seller on eBay, but might apply to anyone who sells a lot.""
Will this do anything to stop scammers?
No.
Will this be a HUGE burden and inconvienence on the honest?
Yes.
Governments so often believe they can wave a piece of paper and behavior stops. Just like gun control, this will never stop a scammer but will punish the honest.
Corporatism != Free Market
Did you read the summary?
Have you lived in the US long?
Any source of revenue a city/state/federal tax can draw on, it eventually will.
If the law doesn't very specifically exempt anyone that sells under, say, $10k per year on eBay, you can expect to hear about this getting badly abused about six months from now.
Or do you really consider your typical neighborhood pot dealer; eight year olds who throw a temper tantrum in school; or people who write zombie fiction - All terrorists?
People worry about the "slippery slope" of bad laws because they can and will get applied as broadly as The Powers That Be can apply them.
Actually, most people can't run their own lives without state intervention. You'd never survive if the state didn't take care of you in some manner. That's the point of the state. You get a group of people together who are supposed to do things for the greater good of the people (that 'greater good' theoretically being indirectly defined by the people in our type of government) because it's easier to pool resources and centralize certain things like defense and transportation than to try and have everyone do their own private thing.
...the government's just trying to protect you. Right?
The problem, of course, is that the government doesn't want to stay small because being in government gives you certain powers to act. For a good long while people kept this in check by paying attention to what was going on. Post-WWII, however, this country became a haven for drug-addled, overprotected retards because "The Greatest Generation" didn't want their children growing up with the hardships they had to face down.
Now, sixty years later, we have a country full of emotional trainwrecks who think the world is theirs for the taking because every authority figure they've ever known has either
a) been nothing more than an overbearing, rigid authority figure worthy of little more than angry rebellious backlash
or, more likely,
b) been a wet piece of toilet paper that always wanted to make sure they felt good and were never "hurt" by things like, for example, valedectorians reminding them that some people are just smarter than others.
Now the place is filled up with characterless assholes who don't have the balls to stand up to their government and don't care enough about what it's doing to shut down the corrupt portions. So you get stupid shit like this because some asshole in Congress decided he was going to flex his political muscle and go for a money-grab. 90% of the people this affects aren't going to know until it's too late, 9% aren't going to care, and the remaining 1% will be scoffed at for speaking up against it because, after all...
And we'll see whether or not Congressman Asshole fixes his bill. I'm betting he sends an amendment to the floor that never goes anywhere or eventually dies in committee because nobody cares enough about it to do anything more than create the amendment to try and silence the critics. Even then, if the critics come back, the blame for the bill's death is so spread around that the suits can just point fingers at each other until the critics get so frustrated they give up.
And this is how American politics (don't) work.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Simply put, this (from the article) is Bad Law;
"Besides costing $200 and posting a $50,000 bond, the license requires a one-year apprenticeship to a licensed auctioneer, acting as a bid-caller in 12 auctions, attending an approved auction school, passing a written and oral exam. Failure to get a license could result in the seller being fined up to $1,000 and jailed for a maximum of 90 days."
Perhaps intentional, but nowhere in the article do I find one iota of purpose, let alone legitimate purpose, for this law. Presumably this is some warped view of Consumer Protection(tm). But it seems that this is more of a regulatory program for the State to bring in reveues where it thinks it is getting screwed. Pay close attention to the fact that they don't call this a 'tax'. Taxes are bad and Americans hate them. Hence a $200 fee and a $50,000 interest free loan is provided for the government.
If this works out (e.g. the State thinks it's successful) you can damn well expect an eBay Lite law, which does the same thing less the requirement for certifications for ordinary people who sell their one used iPod or other junk. The objective here is the bond and the license. The Lite version of the law would most likely entail a license only at a reduced price of $25 or some silly amount to start with.
Then other states follow. So write your politicians now (especially if you are in OH or a surrounding state). That'll allow them to bear in mind your thoughts when this sort of stuff comes to the table, rather than trying to convince them after they're already interested in the potential revenue stream.
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
Go after the legit guys, the gun makers, instead of the guys who are already intending to break the law.
So, you're also cool with going after "legit" guys like Ford or General Motors? After all, convicted drunk drivers who aren't supposed to drive can still pick up keys and drive anyway... so we'd better deprive everyone of cars, just in case. Especially since more people are killed with cars than with guns. Oh: and don't forget baseball bats, kitchen knives, etc. There are all sorts of people out there "intending to break the law" with those tools, too.
Oh, wait: here's a thought. The vast majority of people who kill with guns are recidivist, repeat criminals. Maybe they shouldn't be walking around in your neighborhood in the first place?
By the way, what's your angle on going after the manufacturer of a legal product than can only hurt someone when someone picks it and deliberately uses it in that way? Check in with places like Africa and Central America, where gangs there routinely kill people with machetes, knives, and bottles of gasoline. Do you think that people intent on that sort of terrorizing care, at all, what you think about their chosen tools? I can tell you one thing they do care about: not knowing which business or household may be able to defend itself. In states like Florida, the right to carry has reduced violent crime. In places like Australia, where they've confiscated everyone's guns, violent crime has gone up, as criminals can act with impunity. The exact opposite of what the gun control people wanted (no matter how many times they're told that's what's going to happen).
If guns in personal possesion are such a problem, how do places like Switzerland, where there are more guns per household than in the US manage to have less violent crime? Not by regulating hardware, but by improving software: they have a real educational system with actual standards, they don't tolerate crime, and their culture doesn't celebrate thuggishness as a fashion. And, of course, violent criminals there know that there is a strong possibility of getting shot down like a dog while being a violent criminal: that has a wonderful impact on career choice.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
It may have already passed, but the second this comes up before a federal court, it will be struck down. The constitution forbids the states from interfering in inter-state comerce.
Since 9 times out of 10 you won't be selling to someone inside the state...
Zapman
Yeah...you know, I'm sure there are some kids out there that are ADD...but, I'm really of a mind that most of them are just aflicted with what we used to refer to 'back in the day'...as being a KID. Seems like they want to medicate everyone these days. Most every kid I knew growing up, had wild spurts...getting into some trouble (nothing bad)...it was called being a boy. Now...if a kid is anything but comatose...they seem to want to drug them...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
OK, you want to split hairs? Let's split hairs.
baseball bats are made for hitting baseballs, kitchen knives are made for preparing food and occasionally opening envelopes, and guns are made for moving little pieces of metal very fast into people.
A baseball bat is actually just an optimized club. Its purpose is to violently intercept a round, mostly organic object, and radically alter its inertia. The energy delivered is tremendous, and hence its appeal as an alternative weapon. But wooden clubs go way, way back - and no doubt first saw action as weapons: to hunt or defend against animals (bipedal and otherwise). Most of the hit-the-object-with-a-stick games go back to combat training or simulation in one form or another. It's just that the season lasts longer when both teams survive.
As for kitchen knives: a special case of all things with sharp edges. Originally put to use to: kill, main, dismember, chop up, etc. There's a reason that versions of knives (like machetes) remain such fearson weapons in the third world: they're cheap, effective, and you don't need to reload. And, you can claim that it's in your car because you need it at work (say, cutting cane or whatnot). But edged tools are designed to separate material into pieces. Who uses it, and on what, is completely beside the point.
Guns, on the other hand, are complicated devices of recent invention.
If by "recent" you mean "over 600 years ago," then you're right. But the since you cited the Bronze Age when talking about knives, it seems that 2000 years is your magic number for making a weapon natural, OK, and reasonable for everyone to have or use. I, though, think that any tool that projects or enhances your personal flesh-and-bone native self is pretty much philosophically neutral, and it's what you choose to do with it, not how old the technology is, that merits discussion. Certainly the crossbow, sling, spear, and other goodies go back longer than firearms... where do you draw the line? Maybe there's no point in doing so, and we should focus instead on culture, not culture's hardware?
they were designed on the concept of shooting people
Except, I use mine to put dinner on the table. I actually, literally, shoot things and then eat them. With some fava beans, and a nice Chianti. Seriously: quail, venison, turkey, pheasant... you can't eat better meat, and you'll never appreciate it more than when you (and your dog, in my case) get your hands/paws bloody along the way. It's a connection to reality that most people never, ever make. And the tools I use to quickly dispatch game are guns. Not pointy sticks, not deadfall traps, not poison, not fire, not clubbing over the head - nope: high speed lead objects, some applied physics, and dinner.
I've also used a gun to run off a seriously broken, drug-addled person that was beating our sliding glass door at 2:00AM. I have no doubts that the city police would have been 15 minutes arriving on the scene, and the guy's behavior was truly frightening - and likely to wind up in several people getting hurt. Brandishing a shotgun like I meant it took care of things, and the police found him sneaking out the back of the neighborhood's woods about 30 minutes later. He was trying to get into our house because they were already looking for him, and he knew it. I can't imagine the consequences otherwise, but the same tool that I use to put tasty dinner on the table helped keep that guy out of our house. And should he be out on the street again (no doubt he is), I'm sure that somewhere in the back of his mind is the thought that he'll never know when some house he might want to invade is going to be the end of him. That's a deterrent, and it works just as well on the neighborhood scale as it does internationally.
Guns are fundamentally different from the other items you mentioned, which is why they're treated differently.
But they're not so much, really, and to the extent that they are, it'
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I do not believe in double taxation. I think its a bunch of bull.
I think the entire concept of "double taxation" is a meaningless distinction tossed around by people who think they're entitled to freebies.
Would you be happier if, rather than taxing you 10 times at 5% your government taxed you 1 time at 50%? I'll assume the answer to that question is no. Perhaps it might be a better use of funds and streamline the taxation process, but taxes are broken down and doubled up because Americans have the bizarre notion that taxes are money wasted.
Taxes are not money wasted. They are the dues you pay to live in a civilized society. Education, Defense, Crime Prevention, Transportation, Infrastructure, these are all programs and benefits funded by your tax dollar.
This is exactly what the founders of this nation were against - all these freaking taxes!
It's good to know that you didn't pay attention in American History or Civics. The founders of the United States were, at least in word, against the concept of governance without representation. They were irritated that a bunch of people who didn't represent them were making laws about how they should live their lives and taking their money to do things that they never benefited from.
They weren't against taxes. Even the Articles of Confederation, the document most against the concept of taxation in the legal history of the United States allows the Congress "to ascertain the necessary sums of money to be raised for the service of the United States, and to appropriate and apply the same for defraying the public expenses."
The government can tax you on whatever it needs to tax you on. It's your government. You get to vote and decide what needs to be done. At least, that was the plan. There is a whole mess about campaign finance reform, but we'll touch on that later.
Fundamentally, it is a meaningless distinction as to how the government gets your money. Taxing your car or taxing your income, it's all the same thing. About the only difference is how taxes impact different portions of the population, but you seem unconcerned about that.
I suspect that your key issue is not how the government gets your money, but that it gets it at all. I suspect you are of the opinion that you shouldn't have to pay taxes because you don't like social programs like Welfare, Medicaid, etc.
Personally, I don't benefit from any of those social programs. I hope I never have to. That said, things might not always be a rosy for me as they are right now. Things can get bad, really bad really fast. I want those government programs in place so that, should catastrophe strike, my family and myself are taken care of.
I think it's a crime that in the leading agricultural producing nation on earth, children are hungry.
I think it's a crime that, in the richest nation on earth, families can't afford to send their children to college.
I think it's a crime that the US spends more money on porn than foreign aid. That we spend more money per capita on coffee than the per capita income of more than 2 Billion people.
The United States has taken a culture of independence and turned it into a culture of materialistic consumerism. We've gone from "I don't need your help" to "You can't have my help."
I can understand not liking income tax forms, not liking to fill out all the paperwork, not liking to deal with the red tape that comes from doing business with the government. That said, taxes are necessary to create government and, well, you get what you pay for. No taxes means no government.
As Thomas Hobbes once famously wrote, Without government, "the life of man [is] solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short".
Killfile(TGK)
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