All of us love to know what has been recalled by the government to protect children when it comes to retailers and manufacturers.  What many of us did not realize is that a garage sale may soon be subject to random inspections.  The government rationale is that what is bad for retail is also bad for resale.  Sounds legitimate enough on the surface.

 

Being a patriot, I warn you of the following truth.  The list used by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is NOT a tell all list.  They want to keep things safe, but they will admit to you that they don't have a complete list of what is dangerous and they "will protect consumers where they can".  What this means is that if your garage sale or consignment shop has a product they consider unsafe, whether on their list or website or not, you will be warned, fined, have the product confiscated, or be shut down.  I don't claim to know the policies they have in place.  I do know that if you are trying to sell a waffle iron or toaster that is older than the authorities consider safe, you will face the ugly side of government--list or no list.  Is that 10 years old?   Is that 5 years old?  Is it only certain brands?

 

They say that they are trying to protect consumers.  I say they don't trust consumers to avoid bad products.  Why do they not just post complaints about products for consumers to see?  The bottom line here foulks is that when you don't trust citizens to police themselves, then the rule of the day is to cover your own rear end before your supervisor or the prosecuting lawyers will.  It's CYA all of the way and inspectors and regulators get as aggressive as they perceive is necessary to stay ahead of their regulators, whether the public can keep up or not.

 

In the end, the accused will NOT HAVE A LIST TO AVOID AND BE CLEAR OF GUILT.  If you can't trust the American People to regulate themselves, then you have to run their lives for them.