[BeanAnimal]

Wow, great job attacking me on that one.

Lets get a few things straight:

I am tired of people claiming to be attacked when there was no attack. You offered an opinion with what you considered evidence to support it. You better be prepared for people to disagree and state or show why. That is not an attack. Nothing in my response was personal or negative towards you.

The pump could be bought by the consumer as i posted in my last post.

When you say "pump" I assume you mean "motor". You pay $80 or the manufacturer pays $60 and marks it up a few dollars. He is buying in quantity with and at wholesale. You are buying in single piece lots and at retail. No great savings here.

He doesn't have to warranty them.

Of course he does not have to. But when people spend $100-$200 or so and something goes wrong, they are going to be upset. Bad feedback from customers can put a damper on "scary profit" very quickly. Scary profit becomes scammer profit with no warranty

I figured maybe he does this stuff as a hobby and might enjoy making stuff like this

And that was the point. Doing a "one off" and trying to make money are two different things. One is a hobby and the other is business.

About the whole tax thing, I'm pretty sure that the government is not going to be cracking down on some guy on reef central for selling a product to support his hobby (whether it is or not i guess we'll find out.)

Breaking the law is... well breaking the law. The problem is not getting away with it. The problem is when you get caught and have to pay the fines. That scary profit goes out the window.

obviously the guy has a nack for machining and I just thought that it would be cool to spread the good. "I am not being condescending", yeah you are.

NO actually I am not. You tried to show that the OMs are overpriced and a guy could whip them out and sell them cheaper AND make more money. I was in no way condescending in showing that this is not the case.

Just because I'm in school doesn't mean that I'm ignorant of business, taxes, the worlds existance etc, but shouldn't the gov't get that big chunk of change from the used equipment forum?

Nobody said you were ignorant. But as with everything in life, you learn as you age. Your own comments illustrate that you do not have a firm grasp of what it takes to be in business OR a firm grasp of why a guy can't use his bosses machine to moonlight a DIY business. That is not bad, it just mean you have more to learn (as we all do). As for selling stuff on the selling forum... It is income, but so far removed from this topic that it is useless to discuss.

You made it as if I'm asking the guy to start a full fledged business with a license etc to sell these things.

The point was that it would take a full fledged business to make any money doing it. Using your bosses equipment, offering no warranty, having no insurance and the rest of the stuff all come into play. Your point was "easy scary profit" My point is and was, not so easy.

You really blew what i said out of proportion to make me sound bad.

MY goal was not to make you sound bad. I am sorry that you see it that way. The point was not to defend OM either.

I've seen you posting similar arguments before, but when someone copies a deltec skimmer design and sells it, should they be shot down by the IRS and get insurance to support that skimmer etc??

No they should be sued by deltec. If they are selling making and selling skimmers for profit, then yes they should be paying the taxes on those item. If they do not get insurance, they leave themselves wide open to lawsuits and personal liability. Doing a favor for a friend is one thing, making and selling equipment is another.

Your like the angry man in a bar to picks fights with the 90 pound crack head playing with sticks in the corner. Get a grip on yourself and stop attacking 18 year old high school kids with your devout knowledge of the business world. while your reading this I'm going to go contemplate your existence and why you sound angry in most of your post that I've read.

And that my friend WAS a personal attack and uncalled for. I am not angry, nor have I attacked you. This was a conversation between many parties, most of which have made good points. You simply can not start name calling when somebody disagrees with you. Your comments were uncalled for and there is certainly no way that you can justify that behavior.

The point here was very simple. An "Ocean Motions" is priced where it is for a reason. They are not a readily DIYable device and can not be mimicked for cheaper by most people. Thos who can mimic them either have PAID a small fortune for the tools and knowledge to do so, or must borrow the tools to do so. This also means that "selling a few of these for scary profit" is not really a reality.... thats all.

Talk to SPAZZ about "DIYing" stuff and then trying to do it for profit. You may learn a LOT about this exact type of side business for "scary profit" and what all is involved. It will be an eye opener I have a feeling.