Toy Story

I think HTML Mencken is on the right track here, mos def. I like Chris Dodd, even though he seems to have no chance whatsoever. He is knowledgeable and passionate, and a brief glance at his bio indicates that he and I have the same birthday. (Different years, smartass.)

And while the recent spate of recalled Chinese-made products is, to say the least, disturbing, it is unrealistic to cut them off at the knees all at once. I do think Americans should consider that on an individual basis, as a consumer choice, if only to acknowledge the sad truth that generally you really do get what you pay for. You want cheap shit, China is happy to make incredible quantities of it for you, in all shapes and sizes. Just don't be so surprised that there's a host of externalities attached.

What I find curious is the sudden frequency of all these different "China is poisoning us with their cheap crap" stories. Pet food, toothpaste, toys, bibs for Christ's sake -- they've been making these things and dumping them on us at our Wal-Marts for a decade or so at this rate.

During that same period of time, the great game of encirclement, geopolitical and economic, has continued, indeed accelerated between China and the U.S., to the point where they pretty well have us under their financial thumb, and their demand for cars and fuel has ramped up extremely quickly. We've posted record high current account deficits every year for about six years running, which means China has been thrilled to lend us money with which to buy more shit from them. Neither this nor the current race for more oil in some nasty places is sustainable; eventually the pas de deux gets worrisome, somewhere along the line.

Suddenly the dangerous levels of product quality are getting noticed across the board; suddenly it's an earth-shattering problem. Did the Chinese suddenly start putting melamine (coal slag) in dog food and propylene glycol (antifreeze) in toothpaste, did the FDA suddenly start testing these products? Or is this just the "right" time and place for our esteemed policy makers to bring these things up?