I was watching the Daily Show late last night and they did a segment on all the toy recalls that have been happening lately. Apparently a very high percentage of children’s toys are made in China. The toys being recalled have been found to have a high quantity of lead in them.
In one of the clips they showed a female reporter, she might have been on CNN or a similar all news program and she was talking about how this might affect the Chinese economy if they had to spend more money to produce toys without lead in them and …. as a result this would raise the price of the toys being sold in Walmart.
That’s not an exact quote but you get the gist. Yeah, so if the toys are made properly and don’t contain toxins we’ll have to pay more for them in our department stores. Well duh – so what! Isn’t that cheaper than paying unnecessary medical bills when your kid gets sick.
I just went looking for a clip on YouTube, but couldn’t find one. The reporters statement was so stupid it had me giggling. We have a PVR so I was able to rewind the segment and I watched it twice just to be sure I heard her dumb lines correctly.
That’s why I rely on The Daily Show for all my news (and laughs).
I’m no scientist, but how would eliminating lead from toys make the toy-fabrication process more expensive?
I could understand if we were asking the Chinese to add, oh I don’t know, whole grains to all their toys; adding an ingredient would necessitate the review of equipment and work methods, etc.
But removing something? How hard is that?
The problem is that the Chinese economy is exploding and Chine is lacking the proper control mechanisms which are already well established in the Western Economies.
We have seen it with the toys, but recently there has also been an issue with milk powder.