After my last post, there was another scandal about gross Chinese negligence - and I mean gross. Some guy was selling used chopsticks - a half million or so - without even washing them. That sort of underscores what I was saying before about not trusting anything that comes out of China.
But, taking a cue from the Wall Street Journal, China is trying to make this a political - slash - economic issue. Quoting from a Yahoo story:
China has said the world should have faith in the "made-in-China" label and that a spate of product recalls has been unfair, biased and politically motivated.
"No country can guarantee their food to be 100 percent safe, but if one in 100 or even in 1,000 of our products has quality problems, we will deal with it seriously," Commerce Minister Bo Xilai said on Tuesday when meeting former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
"China strongly opposes (some countries) extending individual economic and trade problems, and thus conducting trade protection," Bo said in a report on the ministry's Web site.
Rich Uncle Pennybags, who seemingly writes the editorials for the Wall Street Journal, would probably take his cigar out of his mouth and harrumph agreement. "Let the market take care of this problem! Let the companies selling these products bear the responsibility! Humph! We don't need Big Government getting in on this!"
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Made in China
I've been ahead of the pack on feeling paranoid about the fact that so much of what we buy may be coming from China, often without our knowing it. The pet food episode was enough to convince me that we've made ourselves really vulnerable to a nation that was our sworn enemy and was sponsoring the people that were killing our troops in two wars within my lifetime. And it's the nation that's mowed down pro-democracy demonstrators, imprisoned dissidents, and wants to monitor every one of its residents with gizmos that George Orwell couldn't have imagined. So is it surprising that we get melamine laced food, antifreeze laced mouthwash, seafood that's full of aquarium disinfectant, and lead based toy paint?
Remember thecharacter Dan Ayckroyd used to play on Saturday Night Live who sold the Johnny Razor Blade Fun Set and all that stuff? That's the feeling I get now reading Mattell's straightfaced proclamations that they would never, ever sell toys that weren't safe, and they had no IDEA that things were so bad with Chinese stuff. (Although part of the problem is with their own design staff, in the case of the Johnny GutRipper Magnetic Play Sets).
Now I don't intend to chew on my iPod, so I don't really care too much what's floating around the air in the Secret City of Terry what's his name, but what about the pencils they sell at Wal-Mart winding up in our kids' mouths while they try to figure out how to do their math problems? This is pretty scary. And big business in this country seems to have colluded to be silent about what we're now finding out about poor quality control and outright adulteration of products coming from China. Someone in each of these instances knew that this stuff was going into the products being sold to US firms. Maybe it was a small farm or factory operator (they don't have owners there, still, I assume, despite "economic reform" and all that other stuff). Maybe it was some bureaucrat in the Ministry of What a Wonderful Republic We Are who looked the other way. Or maybe it was all the fault of that guy they executed and we can now rest easy.
Or maybe it's actually (gasp) an American -- someone in our esteemed market-driven trickle down prosperity machine that we can't let Big Government get in the way of -- who doesn't give a shit about us. If so, I'm shocked -- SHOCKED.
What really tickles me is the way the Wall Street Journal calls any attempt to regulate what comes over from China "protectionism," and keeps up their usual farting that the market will resolve any problems if we just give it time. By then we'll have a generation of LD kids. Excuse me, but I thought "protectionism" referred to using economic penalties to try to give imports an unfair disadvantage in the marketplace. This is protection we're talking about, not protectionism. We just want the government to help keep poison out of our lives. Like they're doing such a good job of with BP and Lake Michigan, right? Really, getting upset about the government being too intrusive at this point is pretty silly when most of the agencies have been emasculated like they have been by the current administration.
All I know is that I have a Chinese fiddle and a Chinese mandolin and they both suck. So I'm buying American whenever I can. And getting all the food I can from the farmer's market. Now excuse me while I go play my Deering Goodtime banjo and my Mid-Missouri mandolin.
Maybe, though, it's all a big conspiracy. If our kids eat enough paint chips, they'll grow up to be faith-based Republican gun-toting voters.
Ha. I don't think anyone reads this anyway, but if they do, that should provoke a comment.
Remember thecharacter Dan Ayckroyd used to play on Saturday Night Live who sold the Johnny Razor Blade Fun Set and all that stuff? That's the feeling I get now reading Mattell's straightfaced proclamations that they would never, ever sell toys that weren't safe, and they had no IDEA that things were so bad with Chinese stuff. (Although part of the problem is with their own design staff, in the case of the Johnny GutRipper Magnetic Play Sets).
Now I don't intend to chew on my iPod, so I don't really care too much what's floating around the air in the Secret City of Terry what's his name, but what about the pencils they sell at Wal-Mart winding up in our kids' mouths while they try to figure out how to do their math problems? This is pretty scary. And big business in this country seems to have colluded to be silent about what we're now finding out about poor quality control and outright adulteration of products coming from China. Someone in each of these instances knew that this stuff was going into the products being sold to US firms. Maybe it was a small farm or factory operator (they don't have owners there, still, I assume, despite "economic reform" and all that other stuff). Maybe it was some bureaucrat in the Ministry of What a Wonderful Republic We Are who looked the other way. Or maybe it was all the fault of that guy they executed and we can now rest easy.
Or maybe it's actually (gasp) an American -- someone in our esteemed market-driven trickle down prosperity machine that we can't let Big Government get in the way of -- who doesn't give a shit about us. If so, I'm shocked -- SHOCKED.
What really tickles me is the way the Wall Street Journal calls any attempt to regulate what comes over from China "protectionism," and keeps up their usual farting that the market will resolve any problems if we just give it time. By then we'll have a generation of LD kids. Excuse me, but I thought "protectionism" referred to using economic penalties to try to give imports an unfair disadvantage in the marketplace. This is protection we're talking about, not protectionism. We just want the government to help keep poison out of our lives. Like they're doing such a good job of with BP and Lake Michigan, right? Really, getting upset about the government being too intrusive at this point is pretty silly when most of the agencies have been emasculated like they have been by the current administration.
All I know is that I have a Chinese fiddle and a Chinese mandolin and they both suck. So I'm buying American whenever I can. And getting all the food I can from the farmer's market. Now excuse me while I go play my Deering Goodtime banjo and my Mid-Missouri mandolin.
Maybe, though, it's all a big conspiracy. If our kids eat enough paint chips, they'll grow up to be faith-based Republican gun-toting voters.
Ha. I don't think anyone reads this anyway, but if they do, that should provoke a comment.
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