THE FULL EFFECTS of the toy scandal will not be clear until Christmas. The season could be bleak for U.S. and Chinese toy companies and their investors. It could also be bad for parents.
Christmas shopping this year could be complicated by two things: a shortage of toys on the shelf and doubts about the safety of those toys that are available. It is possible that the recalls by U.S. toy companies, following so closely the pet-food recalls linked to tainted Chinese ingredients, could encourage widespread doubts about the safety of many goods made in China. That country produces so many of the consumer goods sold in the United States that a buyers’ revolt could be a disaster for retailers.
What about clothing? How can buyers know what dyes were used in the cloth, or what chemicals were used to treat the fabric? As for food, there is no indication that either the U.S. or Chinese governments have managed to significantly expand their testing of the many tons food and food additives that come into this country every day.
Doubts and fears are likely to fuel a “Buy American” movement — large or small, depending on the public mood. But buying only American-made products is more difficult now, perhaps, than it has been since colonial times. So much production has been moved overseas and the appetite for fruits, vegetables and seafood in all seasons has become so great in the United States that the only thing American about many old American brand names are the names themselves.
The passion for cheap foreign labor is probably one of the root causes of the product-safety bind the United States finds itself in today. Cheap labor is most readily available in countries with only rudimentary product-safety regulations and other industrial protections. After all, a nation that allows children to work in factories for pennies an hour is not heavily involved in its role as protector of its people. Such nations also tend to be laggard in enforcing laws to require product safety.
In closing American factories and moving production overseas, U.S. companies are too often making alliances with foreign companies and nations that are willing to remain competitive by cutting corners. That can put consumers at risk.
Those alliances can also put the American companies at risk. After all, when parents stroll the toy aisles and fret about lead paint and unsafe designs, the first name that will pop into their minds will not be that of the Chinese plastics factory that produced the toys, or the Chinese subcontractor that saved a few bucks by using lead paint. The name they will remember is Mattel, the American toy giant that put its name on the flawed products and sold them for use by American children.
That won’t be good news for the company’s stockholders, who are used to profiting from Mattel’s overseas production.
Will it be a merry Christmas?
Bah! Humbug!
blulitespecial (anonymous) says...
Sure it'll be a merry Christmas! People WANT cheap stuff,and plenty of it.They'll buy the same thing from the same store 2 or 3 times over,instead of buying a quality product once.They'll forget all about it by Christmas.There are marketing people making not-a-small-fortune on the idea that people will buy anything.More than once.
September 14, 2007 at 12:56 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )