Fri, Sep 21, 2007 page8

• LETTERS

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  You get what you pay for

  Business pundits have recently been warning consumers that they could face higher toy prices in the wake of China's recall nightmare. All I can say is "duh."

  Of course toy prices will be higher. They should have been higher to start with, had the traditional standards for toys been followed instead of sacrificing care, quality and safety in exchange for money. China manufactures a large percentage of goods for one reason -- price. The old adage "you get what you pay for" has never been truer than today, as corporations that focused solely on reducing costs to increase their competitive edge have rushed headlong into the Chinese manufacturing morass, ignoring peril after peril until a bomb explodes in the marketplace. Selling toys containing enough lead to sink a battleship or enough toxic chemicals to warrant a hazard suit is a good sign a company has gotten too deep into the world of low-cost, high-risk manufacturing.

  We usually say "caveat emptor" ("let the buyer beware") to consumers, but the same applies to companies doing business in China.

  But it is not enough to blame the corporations, although they must certainly shoulder a lot of the blame. Consumers are also responsible for the problems created by fierce and mindless price competition, demonstrating in sale after sale that they will buy the cheapest product, no matter how awful or dangerous it is. And this has created markets for hazardous Chinese products, as well as Chinese jobs that are hazardous to the US economy.

  Cheap pajamas, bras, shoes, underwear, hardware, tools, towels and a zillion other products can kill jobs. Cheap toys, however, could harm children, so toys get more attention on the evening news, but the former problem is just as critical. Consumers choose the cheapest item from China, never asking themselves how many went to China from upstate New York or Pittsburgh or from a thousand other manufacturing towns across the US.

  Hopefully, consumers will soon see labels that read "Not Made in China." The problem is truly that critical. China is a land without democratic laws, without conscience, without oversight, without government enforcement aside from executing scapegoats when a disaster occurs, without justice and without a consumer voice. In that system, quality comes last, and cost is low, resulting in tens of millions of employees toiling under some of the harshest labor conditions on the planet.

  When Mrs. Jones in Wichita buys a Chinese-made toy for her grandson's birthday, she is putting someone in the US out of work, and also possibly endangering her grandchild's health. She is saving a few bucks to be sure, but is it worth it?

  Consumers buy US goods because they feel they are better. Where did that concept go? Where did the demand for US quality go, or the desire to produce it?

  It went to Wal-Mart, that's where, and it has been driven by prices that have been pushed lower, lower, and lower still on the backs of hapless slavelike workers in China, who are paid a pittance for hours unacceptable in the US, and on the backs of all of the factories in the US closed by companies rushing to China to shave a few extra bucks off cost.

  In the beginning, Japanese goods were cheap. So were Taiwanese goods. These days, those countries, with economies and democracies, labor rights and government enforcement of laws, produce among the highest-quality goods, and pay their workers a living wage. But their factories are closing too, because to remain competitive, and to serve US markets, they must reduce costs to unacceptably low levels. Only in totalitarian China, unregulated, or willfully unregulated, can companies find the kind of cheap, almost slavelike labor necessary to produce a toy -- but as we have learned, that toy may bite.

  Well, here's the only acceptable result for toy companies now: Make it in China, and we won't buy it anymore. You better get your head screwed on straight and give us quality first, at a reasonably competitive price. If you can't do that, forget it.

  We'll go out back and make a toy out of a piece of wood or give the kid a cardboard box like we used to do in the good old days.

  The labels that say "Made in China" should actually read "Made with potentially toxic or unsafe materials in China in factories with very low quality standards and no quality control to speak of by over-exploited workers who have few skills and no education, and who have taken away your neighbors', cousins' and old classmates' jobs."

  Consumers could face higher toy prices. It's about time. There should be no market in the US for those toxic toys and thousands of other problematic products.

  "Not made in China" is your best guarantee of quality and safety.

  Lee Long-hwa

  New York
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