August 22nd, 2007, 05:48 PM
Okay, so here's the question:
Do you believe China should be penalized for shipping toxic toys to the United States?
In my opinion they shouldn't be, because it is not China but the outsourcing companys who should be responsible for checking the quality and safety of the items they are selling to the United States, irregardless of their manufacturing origin.
Thoughts?
I believe they should, since its entirely China's job to monitor and regulate them.
As aside note..."irregardless"?
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?...ardless&gwp=13
You learn something about grammar every day.
[I know it's not a true word. It makes the sentence flow, though.]
Anywho, if an American company, lets say HP, outsourced its product manufacturing to another country, and those units came back contaminated with toxic chemicals, is HP blameless for selling the products? Or should they be responsible for not only checking their products, but also ensuring American standards in products made for the American market?
I'd argue that HP can't just wipe its hands of responsibility by outsourcing its production. The products are still theirs, no matter where they come from, aren't they?
Let's assume that HP took some measure of effort to ensure product safety, and told the outsource manufacturer not to use toxic materials in the construction...and the manufacturer ignored them and used toxic materials. In that case, isn't HP still responsible? Even though they issued directions not to use toxic chemicals, they never checked to ensure that the manufacturer was obeying their request. They have a responsibility to the consumer to ensure product specifications, do they not? Making rules, and not enforcing them, is still negligence, is it not?
You act as though the nation being punished wont punish the distributor. China, more than anyone, will HANG you for failure.
that's just the beauty of the market system : it is self-correcting in the end
the reason why China decided on capital punishment of some selected scapegoats is that they fear the wrath of the market, i.e. customers walking away from anything with 'made in China' on it
then again, in the 60s 'made in Japan' and 'made in Hong Kong' stood for cheap and nasty (but maybe not quite toxic)
So if I own a company, and I get my products manufactured in another country, and that manufacturer in another country uses a toxic materials...it's no fault of mine?
Brilliant.
It's like a license to kill.
I can produce a toy, have it manufactured somewhere else, have it come back to the US market with a toxic material, sell it to American children and potentially kill them...and the other country gets all the blame and I as the seller get smiles and glory.
Woot.
People buying stuff from China should be punished. They want cheap crap. They want to ruin the local economy. They are to blame.
Wolf -
Point well made.
I'm against globalization myself.Originally Posted by spuriousmonkey
I'm against it, as I believe it would be very hard for china to check absolutely everything that is shipped out. I mean compare these toxic toys to the hundreds of thousands of good products they make.
Yeah like toothpaste and dog food.
Name one. Everything we get from china is much less durable and long-lasting than things we could make here. With food, it's not as good in quality or anything else.
*looks around*Name one. Everything we get from china is much less durable and long-lasting than things we could make here. With food, it's not as good in quality or anything else.
My school calculator is made in china - Never failed
My samsung digital camera is made in china - and its rather good
My apple video ipod is made in china - I personally love it
That's just a few from this room. They do make some good products, and do produce a lot.
None of those will kill you if it malfunctions.
If you want something better than a chinese product...find "made in japan". Instant superiority. Although probably at a higher price.
Just because it functions doesn't mean it lasts nor is superior to an alternative product. You get what you pay for.
That's one of the unknowns not discussed in the media. 'If' a thousand types of toys were manuactured in the USA and shipped to Germany, would there be some product or another that was recalled? It's hard to get a true pespective because so much comes from China. Perhaps the situation is even worse...but who knows?
Are American cars never recalled because of a safety issue that slips by the engineers? Tainted spinach?
I've had no issue with quality of hard goods from China but won't buy food products of any type. I like those little sliced up canned mandarin oranges from China but I saw a program on the water used in China and it turned me off. There was a person on the assembly line scooping in water that I wouldn't give my dog.
You hit the nail on the head, although in a different way.
If everything we had was solely designed and manufactured in the US, from US materials, by US labor, prices would be through the roof.
Plus, there would still be cheaply made stuff, because that's the demand.
China is basically a manufacturer and labor force for hire. They will do whatever companies want them to do, for money. Often times it's not the product but the labor that is the determining factor. The exact same calculator could be made anywhere, but the labor to do so was cheaper in China, so they were built in China.
Do you honestly think that the products from China are cheap because they come from Chinese manufacturing plants? Do you really think that US companies give quality product design plans to China and get back something different? China, just like any other country, is capable of producing quality products and cheap products. It's all in specification. If the customer (ie the US merchant) needs a quality product, they will contract Chinese companies to tool their factories for quality output.
The effort to make so called "cheap crap" comes from both ends.
We get cheap crap from China because that's what is being sold. You want a calculator with all the same features as the American brand calculator, for a fraction of the price? You sacrifice quality.
You could get China to build aston martins if you wanted to. The location of the factory means squat. Quality isn't controlled by longitude and latitude.
But lets not forget what could be happening here. Lets say a company wants to produce gold watches. They put out the bids, and China turns out to be the cheapest place to manufacture them. Okay, great. Same great watch, costs cheaper because the folks who made it work cheaper. Instead of $5.25 an hr, we paid $5.25 a week.
Then lets say the watches came back from China, and although they looked identical, the Chinese pulled a fast one and replaced the gold with brass.
The consumers are upset. Their "gold watches" turned out to be fake brass knock-offs. They get upset at the company they bought from. What happens?
In this scenario, you might assume that the company gets on the horn to the Chinese manufacturing company and chews them out. The company got blamed, and they in turn blame the manufacturer.
The customer who bought the watches, though, only blames the company they bought the watches from. They don't blame China, because the customer put their trust in the US company to give them a gold watch. Instead of a gold watch, the company sold them a brass fake. It's now up to the US company to reconcile with their customers, and to figure out what went wrong with productions in China.
When you think about it, this toxic toys issue is little different from the gold-watch scenario above. However, it seems the customers are being manipulated to blame China, as a whole, rather than the companies responsible for producing the toxic toys. It is being "spun" as "strictly China's fault." The companies who sold those toys failed in their responsibility to the American buyers, and also failed to meet US regulations.
The US company basically gave an order to a Chinese company to produce toys "with no lead content," and they got back brass watches.
I think that's pretty true, there is no way to be 100% certain of all product fidelity in today's economy, but when things DO go wrong, who do we blame? Do we blame the country as a whole?
What if a US car company, say Dodge, produced a car that it shipped overseas, only to later find out that the airbags in a certain series didn't work.
If we behave the same as with this toxic toy issue, those overseas countries would basically punish the whole United States for a fault in one series of cars produced by one company. Is that fair? If Dodge screws something up, why should I have to suffer for it?
It's funny, but true. I have the same issue with Japan, but for different reasons. Japan won't buy a lot of American fruit, so I feel "why should I buy their's then?" So I don't.
Curiously, though, a lot of people seem to think that products "Made in Japan" are actually made in Japan. Open yer computer and pull out her motherboard. If it came from a Japanese company, I'll bet it says "Made in Taiwan" on the board. Golly gee, Japan outsourced its manufacturing elsewhere.
Besides, quality is directly proportional to effort. If companies put effort in ensuring quality, there will be quality. You could have products produced in the worst location on the planet, and still have a quality product, if efforts are made to ensure quality. If no efforts are made or enforced, then you get what you get.
My perspective, punish everyone involved. It's just the most effective way to make sure it is seen less often.
agreed - punish all those children that put toys in their mouth
Yer missing the point. The media and the US government are spinning the story such that the punishment gets put on the country of China.
The whole country is being blamed for the actions of a toy manufacturer. Why is that reasonable? Or even ethical?
my question is : why did the toy manufacturer not perform a regular quality audit on receipt of the goods ?
They probably will now. Who would have guess China was doing this. Assumption and bottom line are a deadly combination.
Good question. Hopefully someone will answer that. Whoever was responsible for ensuring the manufacturing processes, and the safety of the products, failed their job and responsibilities. All these toy companies have people whose job it is to ensure their toys meet certain safety requirements, and that also includes the materials used in making those products. Unfortunately, someone either made a mistake, or just didn't do their job.
Perhaps this will also spark renewed interest in regulation enforcement? We can only hope.
However, there's evidence that the mishap is being swept under the carpet, depending on how you look at issue.
When you look at what's happening, can you see the possible throw being done here? The media and government reporters will get the US populace stirred up about this alright, but they have the potential to position it such that the US populace focuses their attention towards blaming China, and not hunting down the real culprits of the fault. You can almost see the plot to get people off the hook...
Of course, that's just speculation, but it's so easy to do. It's very easy to blame without thinking about who actually deserves the blame.
If the media said "Gizmo Toys is being investigated" the public would boycott that brand and Gizmo would be in deep, both economically and legally. No one would think twice about where the toys came from. They'd just know that Gizmo Toys sold the tainted toys.
However, when the media says "toys made in China," the public turns their blame at China, and forgets about the actual companies involved, as if being in China had anything to do with the creation of tainted toys.
There's a big difference between the headlines "Toys produced by Gizmo Toys found to contain lead," and "Toys made in China found to contain lead." (The later is exactly how the story was stated on CNN. BTW, the poll question for my post also comes from a CNN posted question.)
Hmm...there it goes again...the country being blamed for the actions of some toy makers. Who are you blaming in that statement? The whole country, or the folks who made the toys? It's easy to do, I know...
Yes I understand your point and I don’t disagree in principle but it does seem to be a rampant problem across many different products. I simply can't see the same thing happening in the US. I've seen the lists of recalled products and we aren't hearing about most of them. If you have that many it is beyond the failure of one manufacture but a failure of the system as a whole, this includes laws and oversight.Hmm...there it goes again...the country being blamed for the actions of some toy makers. Who are you blaming in that statement? The whole country, or the folks who made the toys? It's easy to do, I know...
The only thing I can think of that comes even close in the US is the government preventing ranches from independently testing their cattle, that and the health risk of unhygienic farm labor and environmental contamination of the food supply.
August 25th, 2007, 10:27 AM
I believe they should if you make an issue of it without gaining any results.
Why do you think that is? It's not true that the American manufacturing companies haven't ever done anything they weren't supposed to, but when they do it is usually a breakdown in the quality control systems. The causes can be anything from lack of competence, to lack of threat of accountability.
Like I've said already, you can produce anything, anywhere. At the end of the day, it is someone's responsibility to make sure the products meet specification. So even if there is an endemic fault in the manufacturing systems of China, who's responsibility is it to ensure that those faults don't come here? That those faults don't effect the buyers?
I guess the question still remains, though..."Who is to blame?"
You're right, there are regulations and policies, and there are people who should be enforcing them.
I'd say the chain of blame should start here, in the US, rather than in China. The companies selling products in the US have the direct responsibility to us, the consumers. If the products they sell us are bad, it is them who we should be upset with, first, and before any others.
To quote House: "Well Darwin says we should just let 'em die."
Lol made me laugh for five minutes straight when I heard it.
Thomas Debrowski, Mattel's executive vice president of worldwide operations, told China's quality watchdog chief, Li Changjiang, in the Chinese capital. "Mattel takes full responsibility for these recalls and apologizes personally to you, the Chinese people and all of our customers who received the toys." Debrowski said he realized the damage that had been done to the reputation of Chinese goods, adding the company was committed to manufacturing in China. "But it's important for everyone to understand that the vast majority of those products that we recalled were the result of a design flaw in Mattel's design, not through a manufacturing flaw in Chinese manufacturers." [1] The conversation, which took place during a meeting in Beijing between Thomas Debrowski, Mattel's executive vice president for worldwide operations, and Chinese product safety chief Li Changjiang, was reported by the official Xinhua news agency.
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Everyone should learn a lesson from it. Money isn't the only thing we are living for.
Children suffered from the toxic toys, Chinese labor suffered from it too. No body wants it. I personaly blame everyone who only thinks about money and reputation.
Heeheehee....
8)
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