No way. There is an expectation in manufacturing and purchasing that the manufacturer is using safe building/construction/material practices. This is as universal as your "global" economy.
That would be the "expectation" or otherwise known as an ASSUMPTION.
However you are making a lot of assumptions as to what is considered safe and by whom and when and who made what decisions to use what material.
My expectation would be that when I buy a cue from you that it would be made to the highest possible standards because I know of YOUR reputation for delivering cues to those standards. If one of YOUR cuemakers happens to produce a cue that is well below standards then that problem is between the cue maker and YOU. My problem is between YOU and I.
Really? Do you know when lead was banned?
I don't and I bet you didn't either until you looked it up. In fact lead is not banned in paint, it is restricted to x-parts per million or some sort of like threshold.
Do you have any idea how much lead it takes to do damage to a child. Do you know it takes 35 years for your body to get lead and other metals out of the blood stream?
Dear Joe,
The Chinese businessman who has kids of his own sits at his desk with the government official who also has kids and plots to make all the children in America sick with lead paint. Yes, he personally insures that lead is poured into the paint himself. Never mind the fact that his own kids play with toys that are manufactured in the same factories. My daughter plays with toys we bought her here. My friend's kids play with Chinese toys.
Do you really think that Chinese people are SO STUPID and SO IMMORAL as to not know and heed the science on lead? Do you really think that they are out here building toys and cribs and such using lead based paint that is harmful on purpose????
I am not EASILY dismissing anything. I am asking YOU not to be sensationalist about it.
When you read of a toy recall because the tested toy was above the legal limit you don't know how much above it was - the same way that when you get a DUI I don't know at first glance what the legal blood alcohol limit is for the state you live in, say it's .003% and if you blew a .004% (slightly buzzed) or if you blew a .05% (completely wasted).
The thing that you SHOULD be happy about is the fact that the threat has been identified and paint is being tested.
I wonder how long it took for all US manufacturers to get the lead out of their goods?
When did Tweeten stop using lead in their chalk?
Which again brings me back to people doing things that they think are benign but instead are found to be harmful on some level. Lead based pigments in chalk......hmmm I am sure that Tweeten didn't set out to harm children, pets, adults or anyone but they produced chalk with lead in it until when? You say that lead was banned in many countries in 1922 (but actually your link states Queensland Australia) - but Tweeten didn't stop using it until when?
So why aren't you going after Tweeten Fiber and all the other companies in
America who used lead in their products from 1922 until when???
The fact is Joe that you are a muckraker who likes to gloss over the facts in favor of singling out a few examples and putting them up on a billboard as if the whole world was like that.
Some bears have attacked and killed people. So the solution is to kill all the bears and then no more people will die of bear attacks. That's pretty much your reasoning. I mean the whole world has known since about 16million BC that bears are dangerous to the health of humans.
You ever see someone get Chelation treatment? Did you know lead was removed from paint in many countries in 1922 or earlier? The fact that you have so easily dismissed this danger really fortifies why you manufacture in a corrupt society that disregards humanity as easily as it does.
I have not. I don't even know what Chelation treatment is. I am not dismissing anything. I know that "lead is bad". I don't have a lead testing kit at home to check the lead levels of all the things in my house. I trust that the manufacturers of the goods I buy and use are thinking of their own children when they make things. I.e. no one can control everything a child is exposed to so if a toy maker is making toys ON PURPOSE that are dangerous then he has to think that other toy makers are doing the same and knows that his own kids will be exposed to those dangerous products. Thus the default is that MOST - the vast majority of toy makers will see to it that their products are safe.
"A corrupt society that disregards humanity"???? Are you f-u-c-k-i-n-g serious?
You really need to back off on that one. This remark is so absurd that I can't even really think of where to begin to refute it.
So I will just say that you are on some other effing planet and not on the same one Earth, that I live on. The Chinese have a 5000 year old culture that reveres life. People in general here are peaceful and humane and care for one another in ways that have never even been known in the USA. The overwhelming majority of people here have nothing but each other. The glue that binds this society is the shared humanity.
Now of course there are CRIMINALS who prey on others and who do what they can to cheat the system. Those psychopaths have no conscience. Those types of people do harm regardless of which country they happen to have been born in.
Once again though you paint the whole country and the whole people with the same brush when in fact it's a tiny tiny minority of criminals who game the rules.
http://www.lead.org.au/fs/fst29.html
Educate yourself BEFORE you talk....
Thank you for the link. I would like to give you the same advice. Seems to me that research into lead continues to be an ongoing thing based on your link.
Two important dates on the list on your link:
200 BC - health effects of lead first stated by the Greek physician Dioscerides: "Lead makes the mind give way"
2004 - WHO/ Europe include lead on the list of Hazardous Chemicals: main risk for children's health as the most important neurotoxin for children
So for 2200 years man has known that lead is bad for human consumption.
Yet only in 2004 did the World Health Organization include lead on the list of hazardous chemicals.
So Joe, your link proves my point. And to restate that point it is that we as humans can only address a problem when we know it's a problem.
So now we know lead is a problem. Many countries have bans or restrictions on the use of lead in products. So now it becomes a problem of CONTROL.
Which brings us BACK TO THE IMPORTER.
If the importer of toys doesn't control the entire supply chain to insure that the products they are putting on the shelves comply with the laws of the country where they are selling the goods then that importer cannot know if the products are in compliance without testing them. If they don't test them then it's their FAULT that the dangerous products are put into consumers hands.
There is absolutely NO WAY.. you are pinning the unsafe manufacturing processes used in China on importers and everyone else because they don't want to "pay" for safety.
Um yes in fact that is exactly what I am doing. Who do you think SHOULD pay for it?
I mean you claim that "the Chinese" are deliberately making dangerous products because they are greedy profiteers who don't care if they kill others. So if the whole point of doing all these "terrible" things is to save money and thus boost profits what do you think that the consequence of of rigorous enforcement to insure compliance will be? The consequence is higher cost and subsequently higher prices. I.e. the importer pays the higher cost and subsequently the consumer also pays the higher cost.
But hey, let's not forget that you claim that "the Chinese" are all corrupt and inhumane. So how do you propose to overhaul the entire corrupt and inhumane Chinese society? Or any other society that YOU DEEM to be so? How do you intend to make the Chinese comply with US law in regards to the goods they produce in China?
What is your solution? Build a wall around the USA, no one in no one out?
I think that you can clearly see (big assumption on my part) that this won't work and won't happen.
So what's plan B?
Who SHOULD be responsible for the safety of the goods on the shelves and in the warehouses in the USA which are going to be sold to Americans?
In a way China probably is a lot like the US was in the 20's and 30's with the way the factories are and in the pollutants they seem so easily to discard without proper treatement. I am sure there are millions of good products that come out of China and I am sure we have also not found all the bad ones.
JV
Wow, I am impressed, even a blind squirrel finds a nut. We have a winner.
CHINA as an industrialized nation is about 30-50 years behind the USA in a lot of ways and ahead of the USA in some ways. Pollution and environmental control is one of them where China lags behind in most ways and is doing more in some others. Because China has the west to look to for historical perspective on environmental impact and for what solutions the west implements they can make their policies with this in mind. And because China is not mired in lobbyist politics as the USA and other western nations are they can also act faster in implementing and developing alternative and cleaner (greener) ways to do things.
However China also has a VALID POINT in this regard. And that point is that YOU (meaning the Western World) wants China to be at YOUR standards of production and pollution control but at the same time YOU want to have the cheap goods from China so YOU won't pay the Chinese the prices that they need in order to invest in the infrastructure and enforcement and education needed to bring them in-line with western standards and practices.
So YOU (meaning Joe = Western World) want to demonize China, you want to criticize China, but you don't want to help China to fix the problems. You have only critiques and no solutions.
Let me restate the problem.
Some goods made in other lands which don't comply with American law regarding the construction of them are being sent to America.
How do you solve this problem and keep the goods off the shelves in the USA?
Solution, put all the burden of proof on the importer before the goods are allowed to leave the port in the USA.
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How to solve the larger problem of getting all other countries to share the same standards regarding production and pollution? If you figure that one out then I guarantee you will go down in history as one of the most famous and influential people that ever lived.
We can't even get five people to agree on what makes a cue a "monster" much less getting six billion people all educated on any particular topic and then getting them to agree on it.
