Source: EconLog
by Kevin Corcoran
“Not long ago, Vice Presidential candidate and now Vice President-elect J.D. Vance asserted that ‘a million cheap, knockoff toasters aren’t worth the price of a single American manufacturing job.’ There’s a lot wrong with this comment …. But I want to add one more issue to the pile – what, exactly, does Vance mean when he says these are ‘knockoff’ products? The term ‘knockoff’ has usually been taken to mean a low quality, counterfeit product attempting to pass itself off as an expensive product with a prestigious brand. I’ve heard of knockoff Louis Vuitton bags or knockoff Rolexes, for example. So what would make an imported toaster a knockoff product? The toaster in my kitchen is an imported product – is it therefore a knockoff? Well, not by this measure.” (01/03/25)