trade : Duthie On...

OK, it was bad enough when the threat was lead paint in kids' toys...now this: 

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Beijing factory recycled used chopsticks and sold up to 100,000 pairs a day without any form of disinfection, a newspaper said on Wednesday, the latest is a string of food and product safety scares.

Counterfeit, shoddy and dangerous products are widespread in China, whose exports have been rocked in recent months by a spate of safety scandals, ranging from pet food to medicine, tires, toothpaste and toys.

Officials raided the factory and seized about half a million pairs of recycled disposable bamboo chopsticks and a packaging machine, the Beijing News said.

As I've said before...it's not that this comes as a shock to me, though you can be sure I'll stick with my own utensils from now on...it's that I'm surprised that it's taking us so long to realize just how problematic Chinese goods are.

And it's worse than just potentially contaminated chopsticks, lead-coated toys, or poisoned toothpaste. Part of every dollar spent on Chinese goods ends up in the hands of the Communist government, which is busy building up its military to confront...well, it's not as though they have any major adversaries in Asia, so I wonder who they are preparing to confront.

Since geopolitical reasons haven't been enough to convince most Americans to avoid Chinese goods, I wonder if a wave of product recalls will be. My guess is that these will soon be forgotten, in the pursuit of cheaper goods.

Now dirty chopsticks picked up in China scare - washingtonpost.com

OK, so when you've failed to convince Rolling Stone that a favorite liberal solution is a good thing, you've got a real problem (WARNING: article contains some strong language):

The great danger of confronting peak oil and global warming isn't that we will sit on our collective asses and do nothing while civilization collapses, but that we will plunge after "solutions" that will make our problems even worse. Like believing we can replace gasoline with ethanol, the much-hyped biofuel that we make from corn.

Of course, author Jeff Goodell, who goes on to describe ethanol hype as "dangerous, delusional bullshit" is right on target. Ethanol is more expensive than gasoline, less efficient, and has the nasty side effect of raising prices for everything that depends on corn, which includes dairy products, meat, and oh, yes, corn tortillas, which are a staple of poor Mexicans, who are likely to suffer greatly from this pork being larded out to American corn farmers.

Read the whole thing.

Ethanol Scam: Ethanol Hurts the Environment And Is One of America's Biggest Political Boondoggles : Rolling Stone

As if we needed more reason to be concerned about imports from China:

Consumers were advised yesterday to discard all toothpaste made in China after federal health officials said they found Chinese-made toothpaste containing a poison used in some antifreeze in three locations: Miami, the Port of Los Angeles and Puerto Rico.

Although there are no reports of anyone being harmed by the toothpaste, the Food and Drug Administration warned that the Chinese products had a “low but meaningful risk of toxicity and injury” to children and people with kidney or liver disease.

The United States is the seventh country to find tainted Chinese toothpaste within its borders in recent weeks.

First dog food, now toothpaste. I'm a big supporter of free trade...but consumers need to be cautious about Chinese imports for a variety of reasons, not least being that clearly some Chinese manufacturers are not close to meeting U.S. standards of quality and safety. Caveat Emptor, indeed.

Source: Toxic Toothpaste Made in China Is Found in U.S. - New York Times (link requires registration)