Posted on 08/14/2007 8:45:17 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
(NEW YORK) -- ......The recent spate of product recalled - melamine-tainted pet food, toothpaste laced with antifreeze and a second batch of Mattel-branded toys made with lead paint - were all made in Southern China's low-cost manufacturing hub that's notorious for its lax regulations.
But some industry watchers say U.S. importers that do business with these factories are more to blame than even their Chinese suppliers for allowing those unsafe products to enter the U.S. marketplace.
"U.S. law is pretty clear. The importer is responsible for quality and safety of goods imported into the country," said Erin Ennis, vice president with the U.S.-China Business Council. "But the Chinese can absolutely do more to prevent safety issues."
Pat Furey, a consultant with Ariba, a global supply chain software and service consultancy that also operates in China, agreed that more effort has to be made by companies like Mattel to clamp down on shoddy production of its products overseas.
"About 10 to 15 years ago, it was a common thing for most companies importing from overseas, including from China, to do their own batch-testing of products at their suppliers' factories," Furey said.
But due to cost-savings, he said these companies started to outsource periodic product tests to the suppliers themselves, thereby opening the door to poorer quality controls.
Mattel owns and operates 10 factories worldwide that produce half of all Mattel toys. Five are located in China. The other five are located in Mexico, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.
The other 50 percent of its production Mattel outsources to third-party vendors in China.
The toy maker said the factories that made the products recalled this month were not owned by Mattel but were contracted to produce those toys.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Blame by boycotting.
You had to figure somebody would find a way to Blame America First.
companies or CEO’s
Sure thats why we gave country of origin labels on everything. "sac Off"
No, no, no!
It’s Bush’s fault!
Why not? We are to blame. Our lazy ass MBA “genuises” want to squeeze every penny out of profit by outsourcing. Yes, it is Capitalism at work, but I can’t help but feel some satisfaction that their callous policy has come back to bite them in the wallet.
If it were only toys, I wouldn’t loose too much sleep. But we are exporting production of almost everything to China. I think we’d even export weapons systems production there if we could find a figleaf pretense. Maybe we will if the supply of illegals drys up.
Sadly, Americans are so smart about chasing the $$ that we’ve become stupid about too much else.
The importer/company is in the best position to assess safety before passing the goods/products on to the ultimate consumer. Strict liability laws are the most resourceful methods of holding their feet to the fire. As far as I’m concerned any American company that gets sloppy, lazy or turns a blind eye out of greed to the detriment of the American consumer deserves to get hammered. We should never expect less.
CNN = China’s and Leftist’s mouthpiece. While US firms are to be blamed too, China has responsibility.
They need their own FDA, EPA, USDA, OSHA, ...
It’s a kind of devil’s bribe. So long as China thinks its financial boat won’t float without trade with the world, it won’t nuke anybody.
Actually, the IMPORTER - Mattel in this case, is ultimately responsible for SELLING the product with its name on the product..
It was incredibly reckless and negligent of Mattel to NOT have even a rudimentary final inspection process to monitor the specification compliance of product carrying THEIR NAME, before that product LEFT THE FACTORY or at least before it reached the retailers..
Mattel’s criminal negligence, failure of their responsibility to their customers CHILDREN, sloppy supplier and specification management would give me cause to refuse to purchase ANY Mattel products for a very long time....
Seems an easy fix for all of this would be, if a Company wants to move it’s manufacturing to where ever, they should have to move their Corporate Offices as well. Why should the elitist scum in Corporate not be outsourced? No one can argue that it wouldn’t be cheaper to do so. What’s good for the goose... Blackbird.
If Republicans don’t find a spine on this issue, Democrats will tap the increasing outrage and a trade war will begin.
It is not “free trade” to send $20 BILLION every single month out of the country, to a country which seeks to destroy us, and which erects massive trade barriers to our products.
Yet Republicans seem frozen. Immobile in the headlights of the approaching train.
My wife and I had a talk last night as I was unloading groceries. I bought some Gorden’s fish sticks, I usually buy store brands whenever possible, but bought these because they listed a country of origin, Canada, the others just a distribution address. I commented on it and she thanked me. We then discussed the recall, we have small children. We decided that we were not letting them have any Mattel toys for the foreseeable future and trying like blazes to avoid all chicom product for our household.
Purchase products that are 100% MADE IN THE USA!
Continue to take a stand and be a voice for our pets and our loved ones! Do everything you can to boycott goods made by China and this includes ingredients made in China, Chinese plant processing and Chinese exporting!
Our animals couldn’t speak for themselves.
Were they the canaries of the food chain?
We have to protect our families now.
BOYCOTT CHINA!!!!!!
Thanks for the ping JACK.
Yep, ultimately it’s their name on the product. Nobody cares about where it was built, all they no is that they put their trust in the “Mattel” name, and that trust was betrayed.
no=know
A quaint, uninformed rant from Mr. Red...but in reality China is selling goods *directly* to Americans via internet sales (e.g. eBay, web pages, etc.).
In other words, many times there's no importer other than U.S. mail or FedEx.
But what Mr. Red doesn't want you to know is that his trial lawyer friends can only sue American companies...so that's where he wants all of the blame.
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