All Aboard The Chinese Poison Train.

MayorBob.

Posted to Business on Mon Aug 06, 2007 at 01:31:05 PM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.

Some lessons can be drawn from this latest story.  It could be that it's a slender thread separating good from disaster.  Or, it could be that no matter what you do, if you leave Murphy in charge, bad things are bound to happen.  Or, it could be a bit premature to use "Chinese" and "quality" in the same sentence.  Whatever, Mattel is recalling close to a million toys.  These are just the latest products delivered to American consumers by the Chinese poison train.

The problem this time out is found in the excessive lead content on 83 different toys sold under the Fisher-Price label.   You can go to Mattel's recall web page for more information regarding specific toys.  But wait, doesn't Mattel have a reputation for producing safe toys?  Why, there was even a major story in a recent copy of the New York Times to that effect, especially for toys manufactured in China.  Mattel's secret was to own the facility, monitor operations and raw materials stringently, and fire anyone gumming up things.  Apparently, they didn't monitor things closely enough in the instance of the million toys being yanked off of toy store shelves.  And the last sentence in that Times article could come back to haunt Mattel - "a major toy safety problem" could prove much more costly than prudence."

This isn't to dump all over Mattel - its potential toxic toys are merely the latest in a growing list of problems involving stuff produced in China.  Those problems can be found in food we put on the table, the toothpaste to clean our teeth, the drugs we put in our bodies, and the clothes we put on our bodies.

The Chinese response to any and all of this - US, fix your own problems, then we'll talk.  And, anyone thinking about settling things the good, old-fashioned American way - with a lawsuit - will be sorely disappointed when they try to sue Chinese companies.  While it's true that not all defective products or tainted foods come from China, China is becoming the 800 pound gorilla in the global supply chain.  It is also the most impervious to criticism and the potential for effective action.  It's true the Chinese occasionally do make their bad players pay the price for misconduct.  However, the question occurs, is this a fitting punishment and does it really fix the problem?  What can, or should the US government and corporations do about it?  What can we, as consumers, do about it?