Made in China
 

Your thoughts?

It started with the dog food/treats...I was at Costco the other day and had to forego the previously good deals, as they all were made in China. I wouldn't take the chance

Then there was the human food, the seafood with malachite green.

Then there were the toys with lead.

And the apparent disregard for killing elephants.

I am boycotting where I can.

Considering the enormity of products that come out of China, a few catastrophes are inevitable. I remember when the marshmallow milkshake flavour at Peter's Drive-In contained Salmonella, and they were closed down by Health Standards. I still eat at Peter's whenever I can!

Having said that, I enjoy supporting products made in Canada whenever I can.

I'm sorry to hear that after years and years of having the advantage of buying cheap products made by exploited Chinese labour workers halfway across the world, those Chinese people have finally caused you enough demise for you to boycott.

Oh.

My.

God.

I liked your first post better...lol

It's nothing about Chinese people. It's about made in China.

Wow three different messages in three minutes...Moogled ?

I watched an interesting program several months ago on trade with China. One segment was on Walmart and how they gather a group of Chinese manufactures together and have a reverse auction . They bid down an item,sometimes a penny at a time ,and those manufacturers who can't afford to make that product at 1 cent less , drop out one at a time. This is why we end up with products of poor quality or those that threaten our health. One product I was looking at in the ingredients it said '' contains meat'' needless to say I didn't buy it.

Of course - I tend to edit my posts for the sake of best fit.

I had to find a balance between being a total boob and showing how implicative your "Made in China" is.

If you consider the ratio of good/defective products over the year, it's unreasonable to gripe about the several items you just mention. That said, quality inspection processes are a moot point if you understand the operations of a manufacturing environment at the most fundamental level. When you're busy pumping out 30 million bags of dog food for the world and trying to keep your family fed, not every shipment will be excellent.

China is ESSENTIAL to the benefit of cheap consumption of goods - you forget what it would be like without the massive scale of cheap production. Furthermore, you have no understanding of the inspection processes in China where business is an entirely different ball game. It's not as complex as a simple improvement in quality control.

Well, unfortunately, that is how the products are labelled.

And apparently, the inspection processes are failing badly. Will you buy a Fisher Price toy for someone you care about this Christmas?

Check out this book:

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/...+china+-+Books

Great read.

Cheers,
Vic [veng68]

Not as complex, or as simple?

Maybe you can explain them ? It's irrelevant to me if it is a hazard at the consumer level.

Synopsis of it Vic?

Seems like it was written before all the dog/people food/toy recalls.

It all comes down to money. To some that matters more than human life. That is the root of the problem,plain and simple.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/01/toy....ap/index.html

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...1027?hub=WFive

http://www.usatoday.com/money/indust...od-china_N.htm

I often wonder in the case of lead tainted toys if it is not the fault of the Chinese mfg, but the big companies who turn a blind eye to the design specs they impose.

Build it is as cheap as possible and we won't ask questions. How does the engineering dept at Mattell for example place a contract overseas for products and not monitor the quality control of the finished product upon delivery.

Good point, Bryan. As I pondered your post last night, Deb, I considered that we are partly (largely?) to blame for these problems. We are a culture that demands a mass quantity of mass variety at very cheap prices. That is the bottom line. But somehow, when something like this occurs, it's all China's fault.

Is that the same one I had lunch at almost daily, in the early 70,s. :smile:


Seems to be getting harder to do.

Sort of with Bryan on this in that my frustration is not with the Chinese but on this side of the Pacific.

We have whole government departments and agencies that suck away our tax dollars to prevent this but from a policy level it seems lets not do anything to upset the Chinese and kept business going. The agencies that are to protect the border and consumers are hand tied by the policy makers and even if they weren't directly, indirectly as there's no staff and funding anyways.

Then there's us here who buy it with a deliberate blind eye.

North American companies ask China to make products as cheep as possible. Then when something bad happens its all Chinas fault.
China is actually doing what they were asked to do, and the North American companies don't inspect the products until someone gets sick or their pets start dieing and then there is a big recall and China gets all the bad publicity.

Bottom line is, we're looking for products as cheap & fast as possible from a country with little or no standards. Until OUR government decides to impliment and enforce the standards we expect on OUR end, nothing will change. As voters, our best chance would be to make noise to our MP's. I think an MP is more likely to do something if the complaints are coming directly from their constituents. So my advise to you EmilyB, is to e-mail your MP cc yor MLA, the Minister or health, the Prime Minister ect... and ask your friends to do the same. You can get these e-mail addresses by surfing around on the Government of Canada's web site. Your MLA's will obviously be on your privincial site. I think this will get you much further than a personal boycot.

In the early 90s Wal Mart went before the US government to lobby to have great allowances for Chinese manufactured goods to enter the country. They succeeded. Then forced many US manufacturing companies to lower their costs by moving their manufacturing plants over seas. the lower cost goods forced entire industries to move 'off shore' to remain competitive. If you want to blame someone for lower quality and possibly dangerous products blame the consumer.
Watch out next is the Car industry. Chinese car companies are poised to launch into N.America

I still blame government. If we wern't taxed through the roof, more consumers would pay attention to what they buy and not just buy what's cheapest. As the cost of living continues to rise faster than wages, consumers will become more and more dependant on cheaper goods just to get by.
Here's some links to contact government;
Canada:http://www.canada.gc.ca/depts/major/depind_e.html
B.C.:http://www.gov.bc.ca/feedback/
Alberta:http://www.assembly.ab.ca/net/index.aspx?p=mla_home
Sask:http://gtds.gov.sk.ca/gtds.cgi?show=...LEGMLA#OUFOCUS
Manitoba:http://www.gov.mb.ca/legislature/mem...habetical.html
ect.....

I meant 'as simple' -

Every level of the manufacturing process affects you, I don't see how you can say it's irrelevant to you just because it's a consumer hazard. Isn't that why you're boycotting?

Many North Americans have adopted a very right-wing way of thinking so they're unable to appreciate the conditions that lead to their experience. The following is a post from a discussion I had with a friend about price and quality issues regarding collectible statues made in China - its relevancy is parallel to what's being discussed at hand:


- Chinese factories really dont understand the concept of QC. The workers have no idea what the factory is being paid and no idea what the end consumer is paying. They just know what THEY are paid and it isnt much. Therefore they have a hard time distinguishing a $200 statue from a $5 action figure.

they also lead very primitive lives and cant understand that a statue of spiderman has any value to anyone when they are just struggling to keep food and shelter over their heads. You're refering to a culture of people that will eat virtually anything because its food and their 20 yr old bicycle is their most prized possesion...a statue is meaningless in their perspective.

In fact there is a lot of disdain from the workers about how much money they are making the westerners.

As for the guy who killed himself..theres a difference between understanding QC and making a mistake so big it destroys your life.. The govt closed his factory and most of these factories exist on very unorthodox lines of credit and 'people' would be looking for him. Im aware of at least two people who have disappeared after screwing up with others money in china. He took the easy way out..not necessarily the honorable way.

China is not a country that abides by laws..its literally the wild west out there. Especially in southern china provinces where toys are made. You go north to the business sectors and things run in a much more western style.

- Greed. The factory owners are not trained business people. Most of them were simply village leaders who got their people together and basically turned them into indentured servants. Its a completely different 'business ' style than any country like USA or in Europe.

i run into this type of mentality all the time in the sculpture world. Ive seen many great sculptors turn out poor sculpts because they keeping rushing to get through the current project to get paid and take on the next project. Their eyes are bigger than their mouths so to speak.

- Wages...USA companies have zero control over the wages there and the chinese factory owners arent going to let someone come in and audit their books (as if there were books to audit). Even if a company said 'Im going to pay you more so you can pay the workers more" theres no way of ever knowing if that extra money made it to the workers (and it wont).

- Making product in the USA. A typical $200 statue would end up costing about $1800 if made in the USA. And I didnt pull that out of my butt.. remember I own a sculpture studio and an FX company and I know what the wages are for those types of artists in the USA. Yes you can train USA workers who wouldnt cost as much but as soon as they realize what their peers are making they will quit and you'll be retrainging again..that business model never works.

- Theres one other point I should make. Factories are having a hard time finding and keeping workers these days. The workers are catching on to the fact that toy making is one of the lowest paying jobs in china. The workers making electronics and most other products (outside of plastics) make a lot more so the best workers are looking for those jobs.

They are also immigrating to northern china where the quality of life and the chances of opening their own small business is more likely.

So there you have it... you can choose to believe whatever you want. Thats human nature. But the above is truth based on a decades experience working with china (and having spent probably over a year there in combined trips).


If anything, people can complain all they want about the defective products being imported into our country. There's always room for improvement but don't feel that you're entitled to it automatically just because your 50 dollar Fisherprice bike broke down while your kid was riding it. There's alot going on overseas and their sh1tty lifestyle (relative to ours) contributes to our benefit so I think it's acceptable albeit not desireable.

I agree totally and you are right, this is something I CAN do. Of course, the boycott is for personal safety of myself and those around me. I can still try to reduce the risk by not purchasing made in China when I have a choice.

Man, I'm so old I still remember when it used to read Made in Hongkong....:lol:

Emily I would never consider buying anything that I would eat that was made in China nor would I consider buying fish food or food for my other pets.
I make a point of telling the shops that I would prefer to see Canadian or US products and products from other countries that I can trust.

Keep up the good fight Emily B. The world needs more people like you.If more people cared, the world would be a better place.

Thank you so much.