Originally Posted by jimz
I am a lawyer (and nothing I say should be construed as legal advice especially since we are talking about hypotheticals and speculations) and this is hilarious. The legal pot industry is heavily state-regulated and under the current interpretation of the dormant commerce clause, the feds can intervene even if it’s contained entirely within a state (see: Gonzalez v. Raich). Nobody is going to risk a legitimate license for what is now essentially a line of work the cartels don’t even see economic value in, and the feds don’t care all that much since there’s actual bigger fish to fry and they prefer the broad and generally unpopular Raich holding too much to create a situation where it could be challenged. The feds pick their battles - it’s how they can get a conviction rate on par with China’s even though there’s not even a semblance of a legitimate judicial system in China. The feds don’t win every case, but with plea bargaining, they’re in the mid to upper 90s in terms of resolving the case in their favor.
And money laundering through cardboard would be, well, frankly, incredibly stupid, since big ticket items attract attention, and if you have enough to need to launder through such means you have a myriad of ways that are easier and less transparent than through cardboard. Topps sends me two copies of their newsletter for some reason, and receipts. KYC/AML doesn’t work, but the incessant nature of marketing alone creates enough paper trail that is open to scrutiny if something actually fishy is going on. The fact is most of the time one launders money not with someone not in on the act (who would want a cut as well) but essentially with themselves. Oh, and there are high-risk payment processors who do handle pot business and transactions in the realm, just not the national banks. There are creative ways to legally protect your income, but since there’s no prescriptive KYC/AML checklist set by congress, there are credit unions, neobanks, brokerages and all sorts of institutions in addition to banks that can take on the business. It’s less convenient, but Wells Fargo is certainly responsible for more fraud than the hobby industry can generate, full stop.
There’s sketchy stuff in every industry, and the hobby is no exception, except the fact that all of the ones raised in this thread are at most unethical except for the frauds that are already illegal, and even that seems to be misconstrued. Yes, selling fake cards would be fraud… if you knew ahead of time that they are fake. Very few hobby transactions are of the amount that would interest the feds, since they have limited resources and in order to win their cases, they actually have to determine whether it’s worthwhile to chase a case. The media is generally crap at reporting legal news - J school isn’t law school, and lawyers don’t become journalists often since it’s a lot of debt to take on. The feds have already decided that it has little interest to go after the biggest fish in the space - potential antitrust issues with Fanatics and associated self-dealing - everything else pales in comparison and are civil matters or really, regular people acting in their own self interest that is not exactly ethical but doesn’t violate any laws. The fact is that if it’s sketchy and illegal, it’s regulated - the legality is regulation by its nature. Anything with government sanction, both definition of the word sanction, is regulated, but it doesn’t have to be direct. There won’t be a US Department of Hobby because it would be pointless and a waste of taxpayer money, remember that most Americans are not actively engaged in any part of our hobby, especially those who pay taxes.
And expanding the hobby is what we want, no? I collect baseball cards and memorabilia because first and foremost I love the sport even if I actively dislike the conduct of the commissioner and many of the owners of the clubs and the anti-trust exemption. The sport will outlive all of them. I think it’s natural to expand into appreciating and learning about the sport through collecting - it certainly taught me a lot when I was a kid - and nostalgia is powerful, and our heroes will always seem larger than life. If people choose to speculate, it’s their pereogative, but it’s not one where it’s easy to actually turn a profit, especially as a side gig. If people wants to get into the hobby by pooling resources - which is why you have corporate entities in the first place - that is nevertheless still expanding the hobby, no? And this is a country with open courts which is a good thing, and many cases filed are frivolous for various reasons. It’s like how bar complaints are mostly filed against public defenders because we have no choice in our clients and the system is skewed towards coercion and frequently our clients have a lot of free time to write complaints because we never learned the Jedi Mind Trick needed to get them out of their predicament. If you have 120 open felony cases to handle and basically no budget, unwinnable trials won’t help anyone. You can learn about the outlines of cases in public records - dockets are generally public, and protective orders are extremely rare in civil cases not involving trade secrets or minors and policy disfavors them. They are more common in criminal cases but not by much. More importantly they are generally time-barred because of 6th Amendment concerns and have nothing to do with LLCs or shell companies, which are perfectly legal unless they do something illegal - which would be illegal regardless of who does it. Your personal curiosity doesn’t overcome the right to privacy, after all. It’s easier to pierce the veil in some states than others, but if you’re not a party to the proceedings, why do you need to know anyway? The whole point is to limit personal liability and avoid comingling of personal and business matters. It’s a good thing that such a system can exist, otherwise the court system can easily ensure that no innovation can happen because being personally liable in a business setting is usually ruinous. Most companies are not shady, many are dormant, and money doesn’t inherently create corruption - a corruptable regulator is needed, and the classic examples are the likes of the SEC and FDA.
Look, if there are parts of the hobby you don’t like, don’t participate in it. Voting with your wallet and feet goes a long way. Some of the speculation in this thread make assumptions that are almost exactly the opposite of how real life works. Remember that Law and Order is treated as comedic vaudeville by many lawyers and for every good use of OSINT there are 15 bad ones. The stupid 2013 Boston Marathon manhunt on Reddit should have been a lesson. The fact that Tsarnaev was found in a boat down the street that I walk by every day when I lived in Watertown was just the bonus insert card.
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