Consumer Protection Focus

[Superman]

I don't disagree. Indeed, I always wonder if, in repacement for a large pot of regulations, couldn't we come up with some more simple, elegant method of encouraging the good behavior and discouraging the bad? I think they're out there, but we need better leaders to find them. One of the spinoff effects of not paying attention and not supervising our legislators more closely, and badmouthing bureaucrats to the point where it's an embarrassing and pathetically compensated walk of life.....is that we don't get enough good managers and leaders going in that direction. And it's a shame, since the "splash" that sharp people want to make in the world is actually best accomplished in the public sector. A really good manager in the private sector deals with millions of dollars and impacts thousands of lives. A really good manager in the public sector deal with tens of billions of dollars and impacts millions of lives and commercial enterprises.

Quite frankly, we desperately need to best and the brightest, right now, in the public sector. And we're not going to get them. Unfortunately, lawmaking is not a theatre of service and progress. It's a pig pen of greed and narcicism.

[jyl]

I suppose part of the concern is that today it may be lead in toys, tommorrow it may be poison in food, medicines, etc.

Recall that cold medicine that contained Chinese-sourced glycerin - whch was actually diethylene glycol (DEG), an ingredient of antifreeze - recently killed 365 (reported) or 100 (confirmed so far, exhumations continuing) people in Panama. Chinese-made toothpaste containing DEG was recently found in many countries, including the US (e.g. complimentary hotel toothpaste branded Gilchrist & Soames). And you recall the pet food problems earlier this year.

So it seems that there is a pretty widespread lack of safety controls on many categories of Chinese-made products - not just toys. Neither Chinese industry, the Chinese govt, the US govt, or US industry appear to have had effective ways to detect these problems. Somewhere along the supply chain, there has to be effective testing and monitoring.

Either you trust Chinese industry or government to do it, or you have to make US industry or government do it. Hence the possibility that the CPSC and similar agencies may need more resources, even if it is only to monitor and enforce testing done by private companies.

Obviously consumers cannot do it - no-one can do chemical tests on the foods and products they buy, and simply avoiding products "made in China" doesn't solve the problem since the ingredients or components may be China-sourced.

In the end, I think this problem will be solved, fairly quickly. There is too much at stake for both countries, and there isn't a major technical obstacle. But to solve it, the problem needs attention, and tainted toys do get attention.

[Superman]

Trust? No, thanks. I'll prefer another approach. What Chinese industrialists are doing is exactly what American industrialists would do, if they could. The only thing I feel I can trust industry to do on its own is.......make money.