News Made in China
posted by August 14 at 14:15 PM
onMattel, the world’s largest toy company, today announced its second major recall in a month of Chinese-made toys contaminated with lead paint.
Nokia, the world’s biggest cellphone maker, warned consumers yesterday that 46 million of its handsets contained defective batteries made in China that could in rare cases overheat and even dislodge during recharging.
Toothpaste distributed in some luxury hotels is being recalled because it contains a chemical usually found in antifreeze. This is the third time this summer that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued such a toothpaste recall. As in the other incidents, this toothpaste was manufactured in China.
An Israeli woman was astounded to find a tattoo-sticker of a Nazi soldier inside a pack of bubble gum she had bought at her local store, the Israeli newspaper Maariv daily reported recently. “A surprise awaits you,” said the “Roll Bubble Gum” pack, showing a picture of a pink wrapper alongside what it said was the sticker, which showed a Nazi officer in uniform and wearing a swastika armband, Reuters and YNetNews.com report…. [The] pack’s label was in Arabic and English and stated the gum was made in China but did not name the importer.
Comments
Am I the only one surprised by none of this?
You know what can you expect from 8 year old factory workers?
Seriously though, the workers in China are nothing more than slaves to the American consumer. The conditions they live and work in are deplorable (no matter what our corporate execs or China's government want us to hear) and at some point people under those conditions are going to take it out anyway they can.
In Denmark workers who felt their livelihoods being destroyed by the machine threw there wooden shoes called "Sabots" into the workings of the machine: Hence Sabotage. I think we maybe seeing something similar happening.
@3 No, I think it's much simpler than that. They simply have no enforcement of any safety standards, and a manufacturing sector that's far, far, far too widely distributed (meaning that while an American manufacturer may have seven suppliers, a Chinese one will have seventy, even with the same amount of production), and greedy bastards in charge of the factories.
Also, they wouldn't get the cultural context of the swastika. In East Asia, the swastika maintains its pre-war connotations of good luck.
5 pts goes to Cato the YY for his Star Trek 6, Kim Cattrall quote.
I wouldn't say it's sabotage; it's just extreme greed and a total lack of any kind of effective regulatory apparatus.
There's also an epidemic of corruption in China right now at the public and private level, where bribes and shoddy workmanship are just the cost of doing business. The problem is so serious, it’s why they have the death penalty for public and private officials who are caught.
It's like the Industrial Revolution over there times 1000. Eventually, the Chinese people are going to have to demand fair labor and environmental laws as workers have in North America and Europe.
reason #89,421 that I'm glad I don't have children.
Although I am aware of the economic implications or whatevs.
Ha!
I blame Wal-Mart and the "entitlement" culture it has created ... does no one remember the adage "You Get What You Pay For?"
I blame corporate greed.
OK, so why can't we get a master list of just which Hotels have been passing out this stuff? I've just completed 2 weeks in upscale Alaskan hotels and used some toothpaste from them in almost everyone. AM I AT RISK? HOW DO I KNOW? Help us please! Post a list!
A few months ago a little girl asked her mother what color n----- brown was, because that was what was printed on the label of their couch. Made in China.
But can't you see we need these Wal-Martian Chinese-produced goods, people? We just need them, and forget that silly concept of the Chinese adapting OSHA mentalities. They will do whatever they must to succeed and a few bodies in the mines, a few kids run over by tanks, a few squatters crushed by bulldozers is small ricecakes. As Napoleon once allegedly said, albeit in French: "China is a sleeping giant. When she awakes the world will tremble." Begin trembling right about....now.
Yeah and an additional kernel of truth: Not a single person on SLOG or probably in Seattle is Chinese Product free.
@14 Of course not. How could we be?
@11: Unless you swallow your toothpaste I imagine the risk is probably low. The fatal does for ethylene glycol in human adults is about 100 grams.
I really hope that Americans can manage to separate our impressions of Chinese manufacturing from our impressions of the Chinese people. We're often too quick to conflate things...(admittedly, in the same way that the Chinese often conflate U.S. government policies with the American people).
As I've said before, what can you expect from a culture where their word for "honesty" means gullible.
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