Letters to the Editor
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Will consumers finally start to see this also?
I know that after the pet food kerfuffle, even though the food I feed my dogs was not a problem, I started checking everything I buy a lot more closely. I know I can't completely avoid Chinese products, but for instance I recently went shopping for a charcoal grill. I had a choice between a $50 kettle grill made in China and an $80 kettle grill made in the U.S. I chose the $80 grill.
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You're thinking small
Litigation is a factor for some companies, but every company needs to deal with quality control. How much does a broken stapler costs a company? How about a computer that needs constant maintenace? A copier? What about furniture that needs to be replaced after 10 years insted of lasting 20? Phones that need to be replaced after 2 years instead of 3? Cheap goods cost businesses money in replacement costs, lost productivity, and maintenance expenses.
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As I have mentioned here before
I am a scooter freak.
A huge number of scooters come from mainland China. There is a lesser number from Taiwan, a few from S. Korea and some from Japan (which are mostly Chinese subcontractors). Compared to the Italian & German (some lesser known Russian bikes) the price comparison for PRC scooters is a slam dunk. A Piagio (Vespa) scooter can run you almost $7,000-$8,000 depending on the model. A high end "Japanese" bike such as a Honda or Yamaha - certainly they're great bikes but at $6,000+ they should be. Kymco is a great product - from Taiwan but again the price premium is sometimes staggering almost 2x what a PRC bike will cost. Likewise and almost an oddity - some of the most expensive scooters compared to the size and features are Indian. Bajaj either is or is not a great product but at the prices they charge, it's hard to be tempted to find out.
So the price differentials are pretty wide. But does it make a difference. It probably makes some difference although Vespa quality is renown - for its unreliability. But otherwise, it's a pretty simple machine. A scooter is a scooter is a scooter pretty much. You pay for engine size, transmission and ad-on's like antilock brakes, a smoother ride and such. Will a good one last 30,000 miles vs. one tenth that for a cheap one? The gap is not that wide. At worst it's no more than 2:1. And servicing an expensive one is no easier than a cheap one, even for a mainline brand like Honda. So for your $1,400 - $2,000 for a road worthy fully licensed and insurable Communist Chinese scooter it's not much 'worse' compared to the value of spending twice as much, or 3 or 4 times as much. Are the wheels going to fly off? No they still pass basic DOT standards.
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Thank goodness for tort lawyers
Hmmm, it is amazing to see the WSJ looking to the courts to solve the Chinese quality problem. Normally, the Republican mouthpieces hate lawyers, because they sue their business contributors. I agree with them, if we left it up to the Feds to solve the junk problem it would never happen. Bush and his buddies have shown how easy it is to subvert the government agencies that were put in place to protect us.
As for the global warming bullshit. Yes human production of CO2 is raising the global temperature. No, it is not globally catastrophic. It is catastrophic locally. The climate is always changing. We barely got out of the "little ice age" 150 years ago. CO2 levels have been lower for last few million years than they were for hundreds of millions of years prior to that. Blame India, since its crashing into Asia produces all that rock dust that sops up CO2 and delivers it to the ocean floor via those lovely Indian rivers. We are going to run out of fossil fuel long before global catastrophe, whatever that is. We cannot harm Gaia, she is very tough. We can make it hard for ourselves, but we are almost irrelevant in the long term to Gaia. Gaia will enjoy her next ice age just as soon as we finish off the last of the fossil fuel in a couple of hundred years.
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thanks andrew
i've never seen this line of thought put forth so concisely and non-partisanly and calmly and irrefutably. always love your column, by the way...just felt so struck by this that i had to comment.
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hey andrew,
i live in the salon area. can i come hang out sometimes and have you teach me how to write concisely and non-partisanly and calmly and irrefutably?
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This is an argument for abolishing the FDA
Andrew, this is silly.
Relying on trial lawyers instead of a regulatory system?
Why do you suppose we don't follow that approach here?
Well, lots of deaths and injuries, followed up by lengthy lawsuits, is not comparable to having a regulatory system in place in which the deaths and injuries are avoided. DUH!!!!!
I actually am shocked at this argument, it's really a poor quality argument (where are those inspectors when you need them!).
You are also assuming that the lengthy supply chain, dispersed all over the world, doesn't harbor enough uncertainty, corruption, unclear responsibility, to also shield from liability many American companies. Also this supply chain is ever-changing, making a determination of responsibility more difficult if not impossible.
If you find yourself agreeing with the WSJ editorial page, think again, for heaven's sake.
This type of argument, advanced by reasonable people, is a sign that our era of globalization has just gone off the rails and is increasingly incoherent.
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curmudgeon2 --
You're missing a rather important detail.
Yes, CO2 levels have gone up and down greatly over Earth's entire history. But these are geologic processes, and as such they take place over geologic time scales. By pumping so much oil out of the ground in just a few centuries, we are essentially enacting a geologic event over a non-geologic time frame. And that's a problem, because it does not give most ecosystems enough time to adapt to it without simply crashing, causing mass extinctions.
To extend your argument, the Earth has experienced mass extinctions before, and life in general has always recovered, after some millions of years. Which means there's no reason for us to be concerned about it, by your logic. But do we really want to force our descendants to live through such a thing, just so we can be lazy in managing our economy?