Just asking whether this is out-of-the-ordinary “capitalism-run-amok” or just par for the course. because if it’s out of the ordinary, I wonder: Hm, China is communist, IIRC the Gubmint owns industry. Therefore the Gubmint is directing the use of KNOWN harmful chemicals to be used in the manufacture of toys for OUR children. Therefore the Gubmint of China is knowingly poisoning our children. Is that an act of war?
I used to have a boss that believed it was foolish to become involved in a land war in Asia, but I wonder if we could just slam the door on china’s industrial machine and give the business to Mexico or, heh, Venezuela?
Unless this is some kind of joke, I would have to conclude that you are A) wrong on virtually all matters factual, and B) crazy. I mean, where do you start with that? I guess I could say that China is NOT communist, the Gubmint does NOT “own industry”, in the sense that absolutely all industry is owned by the goverment in any meaningful sense, so it would sort of follow that the Gumbint is NOT directing the use of KNOWN harmful chemicals to be used in the manufacture of toys, and furthermore, Chinese toys are NOT manufactured soley for US (“Our”) consumption. Even then, it is unclear what you think the motive the Gubmint of China might be, to knowingly poison US children, or how you reasonably make the leap to “Act of War”.
Are you suggesting it’s illogical that enormous corporations would destroy themselves on purpose just for the chance to make a handful of American children sick? I think you’re forgetting that children are our most precious natural resource!
And yeah, it was a kind of joke–hyperbole, actually. The point was China’s perfectly willing to take the money, but is also willing to chow down on the hand that’s feeding her. We have some pretty big hands–perhaps we could feed a more loyal beast?
I wonder haw many ravers are rushing out right now to buy up all the Aqua-Dots they can? Surely there are still some stores out there that haven’t got the recall, or just don’t care.
That’s sort of like saying North Americans (since a lot of US car makers now locate their plants in Mexico or Canada) are all incapable of making good cars that people want to buy, right? Since the US is just a giant monolithic block with a singular will and purpose, and Bush is personally in charge of every single thing that ever gets made, just like China.
Seriously, do you think the plants that make these beads or whatever employ more than a few hundred people? And on this basis, “China” is trying to “poison our Children”?
I agree. Where is the outrage against this problem? It’s not an isolated incident - remember back in the summer there was melamine which was killing dogs and cats.
I wouldn’t say there’s *no *outrage. There’s a lot of grassroots outrage amongst mothers at the park and on the Mommy message boards. I don’t know that anyone’s organizing anything, but a whole lot of us are starting to shy away from the Made in China label and just simply not buy the stuff. I’ll admit that I didn’t join them until now, mostly because I think the lead thing is a little hysterical (as someone said this week, dude, we used to melt lead to make toy soldiers to play with! I don’t want my kid sniffing lead dust, but her lead levels are still fine despite her fondness for jelly bracelets), but this one is enough to push me over the edge into paranoid prejudiceland.
This kind of problem happens with regularity in any unregulated competitive manufacuring. There’s huge downward pressure on prices and only as much upward pressure on safety and quality as evil government bureaucrats can bring to bear, assuming they’re not corrupted themselves.
But we’re (collectively) complicit in this too.
We’re perfectly happy to exploit labor costs artificially held down by unregulated Chinese employers. Why should it suprise us that the same system’s toy safety is unregulated as well?
We were perfectly happy to support giant importers like Wal-Mart, even knowing that put US-regulated, skilled, local craftspeople out of work.
We could inspect the toys from China ourselves before distribution. Every time this comes up, the reason given is that the cost is prohibitive. Well, if the Chinese inspect and regulate them, the cost will go up too, just on the other end. If we really cared about the children, we’d pay for the inspections on our end.
But price rules all.
We have exactly the system we deserve, whether we “want” it or not.
Guys, you know that nail polish remover metabolizes to GHB too, right? The only reason that’s not a story is that the only people who do that are dumbass super-desperate druggies, and no kid has been stupid enough to swallow nail polish remover yet.