I remember as a child not wanting to finish my supper only, to be told by my mother that there were poor people in China that didn't have enough to eat. This was during the 1940s when China was engaged in the Chinese Civil War that ended in 1950, resulting in a split country with two States, The People's Republic of China and The Republic of China, now known as Taiwan.
Books have been written on China's progress since those hard times. It came back strong. We did okay after World War II as well, with our economy developing and only a few minor bumps in the road. That is, until the real estate bubble collapsed, which drove our economy into a ditch. I'm not sure if the blame can be conveniently placed on the market alone. Somehow I believe there are contributing factors, one being the outsourcing of our manufacturing factories and jobs. The worm has turned, and China now has many jobs that once belonged to us. We Americans are enriching China's economy while still stuck in that ditch and suffering the losses at home.
As if that isn't bad enough, China is adding salt to the wound by taking our money and poisoning us with their inferior products in return. Literally! China exports lead poisoning from eye shadow to glazed pottery. Children's metal jewelry has been found to contain high levels of lead. Toy drums, action figure toys and children's gardening gloves had lead in the stamp-painted logo; some hard candies and sidewalk chalk also had high amounts of lead.
More problems: Consumers developed eye conditions from using "Complete Moisture Plus." Chinese-made toothpaste contained diethylene glycol, a solvent used in antifreeze that killed 107 Americans years ago. Some monkfish turned out to be toxic pufferfish. China also exported drug-laced frozen eel and juices that contained unsafe additives for color. Melamine, a chemical, was added to baby formula and mixed as a powder with milk products. China has been found to export much of the seafood we eat -- raised in raw sewage water that was then treated with drugs and chemicals banned by the FDA.
China added rat poison (aminopterin) to ingredients for pet foods, causing kidney failure and death to our animals. Wheat gluten tainted with melamine has also been blamed for the deaths of cats and dogs. The FDA's top veterinarian at the time said that finding melamine in so many products "would certainly lend credibility to the theory that maybe it was intentional."
Many medicines made in China contain the posion diethylene glyol, including cough syrup, injectable drugs and fever medications. Hemlock wooly adelgids, which are insects, and the carcinogen Cadmium, which is a substitute for lead, have been found in 50% of bed sheets made in China. Then there was a problem with toxic sheet rock that caused thousands of newly-built homes to be gutted because of health dangers. I'll stop here, but the list goes on and on.
We are not the only country with this China problem. Panama, Haiti, Bangladesh, Argentina, Nigeria and India have reported problems. The British Medical Journal spoke to the problem and stated that the deaths from poisoned medications "must be in the thousands or tens of thousands."
Let's take stock: We currently have a huge unemployment problem, but yet we continue to send our jobs out of the country. Our economy is tanking, but we continue to shore up other countries on the other side of the world. We pride ourselves with the belief that we have the best workers and make quality products here, but we import goods that are killing us. We are all on a tight budget and if we don't have jobs we don't have money, but we send what money and jobs we do have to places like China. We owe China a lot of money because we can't pay cash for their junk due to the trade deficit leaning in China's favor.
To me, this appears to be a form of self destruction, as though we have a death wish. With money not circulating in our counrty, foreclosures, bankruptcies, along with taxes going higher, businesses leaving the country and local and federal goverment making cuts and going deeper into debt, we will only get poorer. Something's got to give. What would happen if we all just stopped buying products made in China? Give it some thought. We need to start someplace...
Did you know:
- 13% of people in the U.S. live in poverty.
- Almost one in four children live in households that have difficulty putting food on the table. That's 16.7 million children.
- 51.4% of Americans will live in poverty at some point before age 65.
Stop buying China... Buy American... Buy local... Buy Connecticut...
Jimmy Halloran is Co-Owner of ConnecticutHandiworks.com, an online retailer featuring handcrafted items made in Connecticut
