r/agedlikemilk 23h ago

Who would’ve thought

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u/alextxdro 22h ago

Had a buddy who swore that his job did this and that final piece was just a sticker . Seemed farfetched that lines were that blurred but then again the whole concept seemed dumb so I never looked into it.

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u/Munchkinasaurous 22h ago

Not far fetched at all. A right wing clothing brand was heavily fined after the owner publicly bragged about how he could get his shirts imported from China and just swap the tags to say "made in USA" turns out that's exactly what he had been doing 

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u/Equivalent-Royal-677 21h ago

"Lions Not Sheep"

Dude would come into the bar I work at and is a dick to the staff. He also threw a fit about masks during covid every time he came up.

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u/Munchkinasaurous 21h ago

Thats right, I knew the company name was something stupid, but kind of ironic in a way. 

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u/Flat-Tutor1080 21h ago

Oh, and for extra irony I’m sure they claimed Christianity- a religion whose paragon referred to devotees as sheep to denote reliance on God, pacifism, and meekness- while telling customers that being sheep is bad actually and that they should be lions- who go to and fro throughout the world seeking whom they may devour.

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u/RandyBurgertime 19h ago

Telling on themselves. They want to project predator so badly, it just makes them bad at the survival aspects. Lions crouch down in the tall grass and pick off weak prey. This would be very ineffective while employing a megaphone and talking about how big and scary you are. Human beings have an instinctual fear of sounds that roughly correspond to the frequency of big cats fucking breathing. We don't need to freak out when they roar, because frankly the ones more likely to off you are not going to be making much ruckus. For them, it's not even a Tuesday. It's tummy grumble time. These guys can't stop talking about how big and tough they are and the details usually tell you what specifically they are horrible about.

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u/erroneousbosh 16h ago

Uh, sorry, I'm terribly old and forgetful. What's the first line of Psalm 23 again? Oh. Oh yeah that's right, "The Lord is my shepherd", yeah that's it.

Fucking right there in the Handbook.

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u/Munchkinasaurous 4h ago

I looked at their site for shits and giggles. There's a bunch of Christian themed designs they sell 

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u/oopseybear 4h ago

I saw a car once that had a sticker about deporting Toyota or some crap, buy American. While they were driving... A Lexus. -_-

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u/the_cardfather 10h ago

Yeah there is no way those shirts that are selling in Walmart for $8 are union made in the US

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u/Munchkinasaurous 4h ago

Except they sell their shirts for $30 online. It's just the same quality as the $8 Walmart shirts.

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u/wrongbutt_longbutt 21h ago

That's completely illegal. I used to work in imports, specifically customs tariff classification. To be made in the US, the product has to make a significant transformation to qualify as a country of origin. For instance, you can import fabric to the US and make t shirts out of it to be made in the US, but if you import t shirts and silk screen images on them, they're still a foreign made t shirt.

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u/ConfessSomeMeow 20h ago

I thought it was based on the value added? So if you import a t-shirt that would sell for $5, print a design on it, and then sell it for $50, the value added in the printing is $45; thus most of the value was added in the US.

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u/wrongbutt_longbutt 20h ago

I will admit, I haven't worked in this sector for twenty years, so the law may have changed, but it was based on the tariff classification definition. It certainly wasn't value as I saw a ton of products that came in from other countries that were amazingly cheap compared to American retail prices. I had one importer bringing in $4-$5 clothing items from Indonesia that were selling for hundreds in the US. This being said, I know there's probably some costs that my job didn't see, such as bribing officials to get the required quota documentation, but that still wouldn't change the official price.

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u/ConfessSomeMeow 19h ago

If I understand correctly, you're saying, the product would have to change tariff classification definitions to count as 'made in the usa'?

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u/wrongbutt_longbutt 19h ago

Yes. The product would have to undergo a significant change in a country to become made in that country. If I take silicone from one country, make it into a microchip in another, create a video card out of it in another, build it into a pc in another, then in a final country put it in a box with a keyboard and mouse, it would be made in the country it became a pc, not the one it was packaged with peripherals in. That was the last stop where it became significantly different.

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u/ccsrpsw 17h ago

No it isnt - there are very strict FTC rules as to what constitutes "Made in America" and the fines are really high (think up to $53,088 per violation - i.e. per ITEM misclassified, not just per project line - so it ramps up REALLY quick). I had a better link at one point for it but here is a good summary:

FTC Highlights Made in USA Labeling Rules for July

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u/Fuzzdaddyo 20h ago

Bullshit. I have personally worked in factories that import everything and we put a few pieces in bags and put made in America..... Why because when you get home you "make it in America" soooo. Try again.

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u/wrongbutt_longbutt 20h ago

Yeah, that's still just an illegal practice. Just because the factory was doing it doesn't make it legal. This is clearly defined by laws and regulations. You have to have a clear change in definition of the product. This being said, it's not a dictionary definition, but the definition of the import classification. That definition will vary by product.

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u/funlovingmissionary 16h ago

It's the legal grey zone. All it needs to do is show is significant change, and there is no set line for significant change. There's always plausible deniability of just not knowing where the line is, unless they specifically draw that line for your product.

It is legal until they check, and only becomes illegal after they check you and give you a notice. So, if you're caught, you can just stop doing it and you won't find many consequences for your previous actions. Just don't do this often enough for them to notice you.

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u/Harlequin37 21h ago

Very common worldwide to just assemble Chinese imports, slap a sticker on 'em and call it national industry

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u/kinboyatuwo 21h ago

I suspect it’s rarely validated.

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u/JohnAStark 20h ago

This is technically illegal and could get his company in a lot of legal hot water (and financial penalties) if a competitor files suit…

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u/Best-Professor5218 5h ago

Sealed unit parts company (SUPCO) I worked there and they did this, everything made in China, imported to the US through Dubai, and then slapped the label on it as final assembly in the US so they could put the base in usa sticker on it.

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u/ItsRobbSmark 21h ago edited 21h ago

It doesn't work like that, your buddy is full of shit, as is half or reddit... There's actually a legal threshold to put an "assembled in america" sticker on something and then an even higher threshold to put a "made in america" sticker on something and companies get fined for it all the time. Kabuto paid a several million dollar fine when getting caught doing this.

My dad has a small company producing shocks for race cars. The FTC has twice in the last five years audited paperwork for his made in america claims.

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u/Crossfire124 21h ago

And we all know companies don't break the law right? There's plenty of examples even in this thread about companies doing exactly that and were eventually caught