Rudolph the Cadmium-Nosed Reindeer 454
theodp writes "Barred from using lead in children's jewelry because of its toxicity, some Chinese manufacturers have been substituting the more dangerous heavy metal cadmium in sparkling charm bracelets and shiny pendants being sold throughout the US, an AP investigation shows. Charms from 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' bracelets were measured at between 82 and 91 percent cadmium, and leached so much cadmium that they would have to be specially handled and disposed of under US environmental law if they were waste from manufacturing. Cadmium, a known carcinogen, can hinder brain development in the very young. 'There's nothing positive that you can say about this metal. It's a poison,' said the CDC's Bruce Fowler. On the CDC's priority list of 275 most hazardous substances in the environment, cadmium ranks No. 7. Jewelry industry veterans in China say cadmium has been used in domestic products there for years. Hey, at least it doesn't metabolize into GHB when the little tykes ingest it."
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe if imports were actually inspected at the Border of the USA this crap would not happen. Very little of what is imported is inspected or even properly taxed.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:3, Insightful)
Could outsource less (Score:5, Insightful)
Just saying.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:2, Insightful)
Taxed? Inspected? Let's talk about fines. And since many of these Chinese companies don't care, let's fine China. If that country won't take responsibility for the poisons they export to us, why are we dealing with them?
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:5, Insightful)
I have no numbers on the amount of goods shipped into the US on a daily basis, but I suspect that it would take a large percentage of the population to check it all in a timely manner.
It would be better to simply fine Walmart several hundred billion dollars for poisoning US citizens. Walmart forces suppliers to lower prices, and this is exactly what we get. It is Walmart's fault.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:4, Insightful)
People making these bracelets with toxic metals in them are banking on that it would take months if not years for people to find this out. In this time, a company who makes it can net a lot of money.
How come... (Score:5, Insightful)
Barred from using lead ... Chinese manufacturers have been substituting the more dangerous heavy metal cadmium
They're not barred from using Cadmium? But they're barred from using Lead?
Wouldn't it make more sense to regulate the safety of products using the more harmful material first?
We shouldn't need a 'law' for each material... we should get one law about safety requirements for harmful materials, warning labels, and access by children.
For example, products for use by children must not contain amounts of cadmium or lead that are not protected by a safety measure.
Of course their toy's batteries might contain cadmium or lead, so it shouldn't be banned, but safety requirements at least as strict (such as shielding/containing harmful materials) should be applied to Cadmium as to lead, etc, etc.
And this is why not to buy Chinese.... (Score:5, Insightful)
This sort of shit is why you don't want to buy Chinese products if you can help, and never, ever, buy Chinese food products.
When buying gifts for very young children (preschool age and down) I do my best to buy toys made in Europe or the US.
I've accepted that I can't avoid Chinese merchandise in general, but I try to be selective - not for people who don't know not to eat their stuff, and not for things I plan to eat.
I read somewhere that Chinese industry is currently at a safety level - both for their workers and their products - roughly comparable to Victorian England or America. That isn't a world I want to live in if I can avoid it.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Domestic use (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow. You are a total and complete ass. You don't like the Chinese government, so some poor two year old should get poisoned?
Fucktard.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:3, Insightful)
Kids don't know enough about science to know these things are bad for them. Neither do their parents. That's why we need to get these things out of stores so something safer can take their place.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:4, Insightful)
You forget that whomever is in charge gets big money from lobbyists. The lobbyists are from companies who make BIG quarterly profits by ensuring that American jobs fly offshore, but Americans are still demanded to buy the products. This is why there isn't any taxation on Chinese imports or offshoring, but there is taxation for American companies making their stuff in house. Same reason why there are large tax incentives for businesses to move staffing overseas, while domestic companies have to pay payroll taxes.
Don't expect cadmium-laced toys for our kids to be the end of this. Hydrogen sulfate in drywall, melamine in baby food and pet products, lead and other toxic metals in toys, chips with remote destruct or monitoring abilities, and so on.
What is needed is to stop relying on another country that does not like us, but makes stuff for our kids. This won't come from popular support. It won't come from companies because they are addicted to the race to the bottom. So the pressure has to be done at the political level. Come election year, if a candidate doesn't get laws passed dealing with this, chuck them out and have someone who is able to provide minimal safety in products put in office, regardless of "D" or "R" by their names.
We need trade barriers protecting our nation and workforce. China has them in place for their own interests. Want a company in China? Their local interests have to own 51% of all ventures, and a foreigner cannot own land there. Don't forget the tariffs, so we can get revenue from somewhere other than the FED's printing press and level the playing field.
Re:And this is why not to buy Chinese.... (Score:2, Insightful)
That's a problem. I was reading somewhere (sorry, don't recall where... it was a news article months ago) about how the majority of all US peanut butter brands are filled with peanuts from China. Apparently they control the majority of the market.
Just imagine the things leaching into their soil over there...
ugh.
Re:Domestic use (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:5, Insightful)
If that country won't take responsibility for the poisons they export to us, why are we dealing with them?
Because it's cheap.
The real question is: (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you buy it anyway?
Because I don’t see it not being sold everywhere, anytime soon.
You don’t have to buy it from China, you know? ;)
But it’s so cheap, right?
When did cheap become equal too good?
I guess by the time that simple became equal to efficient...
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:3, Insightful)
Half the time people cry out for more regulation, there already is regulation in place. The problem is the very entity you want to enact regulations, is inept, certainly fallible, and usually only reacts after bad news like this gets out to the consumers--who by then (presumably) would already be scared of buying this stuff.
Since rules are already in place for this sort of thing, you can't cry out "regulate it!" because it already is regulated. The best, and really only short of a miracle, is informing consumers. And consumers, foolishly believing themselves protected by the government, do not inform themselves much and thus are put at risk. A large part of me thinks that these sorts of regulations are actually *bad* ideas because people assume that god (another word for "government") with his all-knowing wisdom will make sure everything is OK. But that's not the reality, and consumers always have to try to keep themselves informed. And skeptical. There's something wrong with a market, IMO, if people walk into a BestBuy and actually trusts one of the salespeople there.
Anyway, it's not really that government itself *needs* to oversee and regulate this stuff as *someone* has to. That's a very different claim, and private organizations could easily certify products as safe as an alternative. Not certified, don't buy. Wouldn't the world be so much better if consumers informed themselves about the products they buy (and at what costs to them, financially speaking) instead of just mindlessly consuming? We'd have actual competition in the medical sector (people do to the doctor and do not even agree to a price beforehand and just pay whatever is charged...!), BestBuy would go out of business overnight once people discovered the internet, and apple would sell less Ipods due to more people buying other personal media players, so on and so forth. People might even realize that there is an alternative to Windows!
In the end the onus is on you to keep yourself informed.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:2, Insightful)
Because China could tank our currency very easily and 'owns' A LOT of real assets in the United States.
Plus, It's the most common blunder - never get into a land war with china
(followed closely there after: never mess with a Sicilian when death is on the line)
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:5, Insightful)
Come election year, if a candidate doesn't get laws passed dealing with this, chuck them out and have someone who is able to provide minimal safety in products put in office, regardless of "D" or "R" by their names.
If you only choose from the "D" or "R" options then would you really expect anything to change? I think it would be far more effective to vote for anyone else other then a "D" or "R" even if that candidate doesn't get elected as if any significant percentage of people did so it would not only scare the duopoly (and those lobbying them so effectively) but would encourage others in the future to try and provide a real alternative.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:4, Insightful)
Whoever is in that seat today, you're out come election time. I don't care if its D, R, L, C, or X after your name. You're out, because you are demonstrably doing a shitty job.
If you are in that seat today, get the fuck out. Let someone else try it for a while, because you suck.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:5, Insightful)
wtf has this got to do with "letting the market decide"? your talking about kids braclets, they are hardly in a position to decide anything. I would suggest once the market knows these bracklets are made with a dangerous heavy metal, it will decide. fail.
Sir —
The market's invisible hand rewards those selling cadmium bracelets because they are cheaper than other kinds; people buy them in the belief that they are essentially equivalent in every way but price (and, interestingly, looks). However, as per the article, these bracelets are not equivalent in their health effects - the cadmium bracelets present an enormous health hazard. I agree that if people knew the presence of cadmium and its effects, they would not buy cadmium laden bracelets. However people do not know, they have any way of knowing such a thing, and as most people would presume that such a toxin would never be in children's bracelets there is unlikely to be inquiry by most purchasers (many are also likely aware that the salesperson knows as much about the heavy metal content of the bracelet as they would know about ... virtually anything, hence there is no source of information that can be accessed with reasonable levels of effort).
With enough money one can ensure the market never "knows". A well funded company that has purchased all its competitors and has inroads into multiple marketing vectors can present whatever image they feel appropriate. Your rebuttal would seem to be premised on a society made up predominantly of informed, conscientious consumers. That is not the society we now live in. Consumers today are at best uninformed, indifferent, and short-sighted. On average they are self-indulgent, misinformed, and impulsive.
For example, look at the food production and distribution system in the United States. People who eat meat at fast food joints are consuming (albeit in small portions) sterilized faeces and ground up other humans. Heck, Monsanto's still around, and doing rather well [google.ca], in spite of well known criticism [wikipedia.org].
Alas, I would disagree with the assertion that the market can self-correct in all cases (the formula is rather simple - if the profit minus the cost of mitigation is greater than the cost of continuing to sell a bad product - continue to sell). Perhaps if the culture changes and people become conscious of their consumables we will see a change in the type of market. But for now, if the market were left to decide, and the avenues of information were paid to ameliorate criticism, there could continue to be a healthy market for cadmium laden bracelets that are cheaper than alternatives and purchased in the absence of education, awareness and forethought.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:4, Insightful)
No, because it is highly profitable - and while that may seem like semantic quibbling, it is all the difference in the world.
Beyond that, those who profit here have two layers of insulation: First, it was made in China ("Oh, those bad, bad Chinese!", the media cooperatively wails). And secondly, since the corporation is a de facto "person" under U.S. law the individuals who make the decisions here are rarely found to be culpable/responsible; instead, the corporation picks up the tab out of small change.
Contradictorily - and presumably only because they are new to the game of capitalism - the Chinese have yet to learn that the search for profits justifies all, so when they catch a business executive pulling a stunt that harms their people, they gift said executive with that uniquely Chinese jewelry: A bullet behind the ear.
Or perhaps their government is just less corrupt than ours is.
Fair and balanced. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:5, Insightful)
That retail wouldn't go away and those workers would then likely get better paying jobs at the local businesses WM originally put out of business, which then spring back up. It really annoys me that people are too cheap to pay an extra percent or two to support local businesses where not only the workers spend their earnings in the local community, but the owners do as well. Shopping at WM simply supports the concentration of retail profit into the hands of fewer and fewer people, impoverishing far more people than it ever helps. It gets very disgusting when state and local governments lend a hand to the WalMarts of the world by offering them tax breaks, which just helps accelerate destruction of the local economy and speeds the transit of wealth out of the community -- all so people can save a dime on a box of eggs. Sick.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:2, Insightful)
If that country won't take responsibility for the poisons they export to us, why are we dealing with them?
Who else would supply Wal-Mart with all their crap?
TARIFFS! (Score:5, Insightful)
The trade may be free, but it's sure as hell not fair:
It's time to place heavy tariffs on Chinese imports until they play by the same rules as the rest of the civilized world. We shouldn't do business with Dickenonsian nightmare states.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:5, Insightful)
Or perhaps their government is just less corrupt than ours is.
I lol'd heartily.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, it seems a perfectly good idea to create those jobs to inspect the goods.
Since WM brings it in WM pays for it. Those people who lost their jobs because of WM
may get it back in the inspection sector.
Of course this will raise the WM prices, which is the right thing to do; today they
can offer the low price because they are not bound buy the same safety regulations.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah....between this and the chinese drywall problems, I do think they're trying to kill us.
Hell, they're even after out pets!! Remember the pet food scare about a year ago?
How about we just stop buying shit from China? How about a great marketing campaign for US companies. "Sure it costs a little more, but it won't kill ya"!
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:3, Insightful)
People like you voted for Nader and inflicted Bush the Younger on yourselves, our country, and the world. As the first decade of the 21st century has tragically demonstrated, the parties aren't the same.
Voting for a third party does nothing with out simple first-past-the-post voting scheme. Any scenario other than a two party system is unstable, and will eventually decay to that [wikipedia.org]. Every new political party in the United States has been a rebranding of one of the previous two.
I'd love to switch to an alternative scheme. Most other democracies are parliamentary, and we probably made the wrong decision back in the 18th century. But changing isn't very likely, so we're stuck with our current system.
That means that the only way to effect change is to subvert one of the political parties. The Sarah Palin/Glenn Beck/tea party people have been eating through the Republicans like a chestburster from Aliens. We need to do the same to the Democratic party to make it more progressive, and various people have been trying.
But you see, that involves work. It's much easier to decry the system than to fix our country.
Re:Fair and balanced. (Score:1, Insightful)
how do you know they are safe ? these products were "safe" and "inspected" before the AP actually tested them and found them to be highly toxic. how do you know the majority of products are uncontaminated ? answer: you dont. this isnt scare mongering - this is a real problem repeating itself on a periodic basis as more and more "safe" chinese products are found to be unsafe.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:5, Insightful)
The US produces more food than it consumes, so we would be ok on the essentials, although we might have trouble getting Mexican mangos for a while. Furthermore, because most other world currencies depend somewhat on the dollar, any such inflation would likely spread throughout the world monetary system.
I'm not trying to say we shouldn't close the deficit, of course we should, but let's be rational about it. I'm tired of oversensationalized disaster scenarios.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:5, Insightful)
Please, punish me with a paltry salary of $5 million per year!
You conveniently forget one common case. An entrepreneur creates a company, works for 10 or 15 years to build it up, lives on minimal salary himself ... and finally he finds a buyer for his business. Now you propose to steal 90% of the money that he earned, but not cashed, in last 10 to 15 years. In your world no sane man would open a business if any large transaction is confiscatory.
Re:REGULATORS, the dumbasses! (Score:3, Insightful)
Private enterprise failed here just as much -- the retailers had just as much opportunity to discover cadmium contamination and didn't do it . I tell you what, you name the private corporation that could handle vetting all of our imports.
While you're chewing on that -- how are those government-built roads, government-run civil services, and food quality that improved measurably after government regulation treating you? Government isn't always the answer, but neither is privatization. Anti-corporate sentiment is at an all-time high, and it is richly deserved.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:3, Insightful)
It really annoys me that people are too cheap to pay an extra percent or two to support local businesses where not only the workers spend their earnings in the local community, but the owners do as well.
It's not just that. While WMT has pushing their low prices has been a factor, there is also the ease of going to one place for several things rather than going to the local hardware store, the local toy store, the local cosmetics store, the local electronics store, and the local grocery. It's more a time thing than anything else.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, it's not his money, is it? It's always easier to say someone richer than you has more than he needs. Of course, I'm sure he goes to the movies and buys hamburgers with excess cash like everyone else, instead of using it to help poor African children. But it's always easier to be morally righteous when you're the one that stands to benefit the most out of that sort of "transaction."
It's really no different than how some people try to justify shoplifting or such.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:3, Insightful)
You still haven't answered: what justifies the government taking it all away? If you don't think someone "deserves" all the money they make, then don't fucking give it to them.
Pots and kettles (Score:2, Insightful)
It's time to place heavy tariffs on Israeli and USA imports until they play by the same rules as the rest of the civilised (sic) world. We shouldn't do business with Genocidal Torture states. There, trolled that for you.
The thing is, dickweed, it's Walmart and similar US corporations that are making the money on this kind of activity, and you're not going to put their owners and senior executives in prison, so you should just shut the fuck up with your racist rhetoric. You can stop this business by dealing with those "American partners", but you refuse, because you're too weak to stand up for yourselves and just want to point the finger elsewhere.
And as for playing by the rules, I hadn't noticed the USA fulfilling its legal requirements as stipulated by its own constitution and legally ratified international treaties. The USA manipulates its currency by launching wars on anyone trying to suppress the petrodollar. Wait, I've been trolled again myself, haven't I?
Re:And this is why not to buy Chinese.... (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that if one kid dies or becomes permanently sick because of these toys, it's too late.
I note the Republicans (well, and I guess the Democrats now) saying the same thing about terrorism.
We cannot protect everyone from everything. Well, we could, but I'm not sure that would be a world anyone would want to live in.
But here's the question... has cadmium actually made anyone sick yet? Isn't the alarm being raised before that happened already? Do you expect our politicians to somehow spot have spotted this ahead of everyone else?
I would be perfectly happy to see cadmium regulated, but it's not as if people are dying in the streets right now because of it.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Rudolph... (Score:2, Insightful)
I was thinking along these lines, too: now it'd be only logical for them to switch to radium, to give Rudolph's nose a warm glow. You know, the way Mme Curie did it and early pilot chronographs actually had it.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:2, Insightful)
We'd still buy the cheaper one.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:3, Insightful)
In places like that, people still do open businesses, so everyone must be insane. Because it couldn't be possible that you are wrong.
Now you propose to steal 90% of the money that he earned, but not cashed, in last 10 to 15 years.
I haven't seen anything about capital gains in there, and that's separate from salary now. So you are asserting that they are the same, which isn't the case now, and that it would also be at the highest tax rate, which it isn't now. That seems to be assuming everything you can to bash him, rather than figuring out if that's what he meant.
Not to mention, it wouldn't matter. Don't sell the company. Have them pay a trust, and have the trust pay out. In most cases, a trust (especially one associated with a large legitimate company, as is in this case) operates as a separate entity. Have the trust pay him out slowly, rather than a lump sum. It's not hard to minimize taxes. And no, there's no moral duty to make your taxes as high as possible and pay them out. Good tax structure isn't tax evasion.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:3, Insightful)
There seems no end of funding available to search passengers at airports, why can't retail goods be searched?
Minion: Sir! Some guy put a firework in his socks and tried to board an aircraft!
Gov: OMFGBBQ!!! Strip-search all passengers! Build new xray machines and put them in airports! Flood the airports with rent-a-cops! Rescind all human rights! Detain anyone who uses any word on our secret naughty word list! Build dna databases of everyone except me!
Minion: Sir! Also Walmart are selling kids toys that are made of toxins!
Gov: Meh! So what?
Re:What can you do? (Score:3, Insightful)
If I were a parent and I had read this article, it would probably scare me shitless. What would you do to protect your children from these kinds of threats -
Throw away the possibly poisonous stuff as soon as you learn about it and go on as always. Scared? Not at all. I am now 46. In my childhood all kinds of cool stuff was allowed, which now scare you nannies 'shitless'. I never heard of children dieing like flys then. On the contrary, it looks like the children were healthier in my time than they are now.
Re:Fair and balanced. (Score:1, Insightful)
Ok. Give us some sources. Name some more countries and their dangerous products that we buy.
Re:REGULATORS! (Score:3, Insightful)
Half the time people cry out for more regulation, there already is regulation in place.
The answer isn't more regulation, nor deregulation, but better regulation. Elect good leaders who will appoint good regulators and you'll have good regulations.
In the end the onus is on you to keep yourself informed.
Nobody can know everything. There are too many facets of life to be informed about everything. When my pipes spring a leak I call a plumber; no matter how informed I am about plumbing, a professional plumber will know more than me. There is no way for you to inform yourself that the toys are toxic unless it's documented somewhere that you can access the information.
I like regulators because it's their job to be informed of the industries they're regulating.
The myth of choice... (Score:2, Insightful)
This presumes that there is always an ethical alternative. I think that the lobbying actions of the petroleum industry against environmental initiatives are terrible. Who should I buy my gasoline from, then?
Are you prepared to research everything that you buy to determine whether the corporation that sells it is involved in hazardous business? (and if so, I can only presume that that is your job) I'd love to buy exclusively from reputable businesses with ethical practices, but it is entirely impossible, especially given that most products are sourced from many companies.
Sometimes, it's almost impossible to not deal with certain companies, whether we'd like to or not. I'd challenge you to eliminate all products in your house that have association with Archer-Daniels Midland, a company convicted of one of the most notorious cases of international price-fixing.
Markets are great for some things, but they require laws. Regulations exist to force companies to behave more ethically than the market requires of them. The most effective regulations incentivize ideas that the market is unwilling or unable to support but that may be important for long-term growth. Try abolishing the FDIC and then stating that customers will just have to find a bank that will always make good decisions...