chinese toys

everyday, somewhere in the news media, an article is written about the dangers of chinese toys and the fact they have lead in them. recently, i've heard that china is recalling one million pounds of lead because there are toys in them. americans quickly latch on to news like this, and discuss the possible dangers to "our children" (another post on parenting will come soon.) but the point of this post is to talk about manufacturing and china.

in this day in age, china has become the manufacturer of nearly anything and everything. but we rarely hear or care about the high quality products that the chinese manufacture, and we use everyday.

most of the clothes purchased in the u.s. are manufactured in china. the old navy, gap and banana republic companies all have a significant portion of their goods coming from china. many higher end suits from hugo boss or calvin klein come from china, not some european country.

nearly all of the apple juice consumed in the u.s. comes from china, and china holds a 63% market share of the global apple juice concentrate. (julius fun fact: poland is 2nd making up nearly another 25% of the market for apple juice concentrate)

china is also the biggest manufacturer of magnetic and optical card readers. that right, we cannot use our credit cards in this country without a reliable machine from china. it should also be noted that china manufactures exports more audio visual equipment and heavy machinery than any other country in the world (most of it to the united states)

we just love to latch onto bad news about a place like china, and particularly when our economy is performing at a level which can be considered "mediocre" we like to rally behind america and take a stand saying, "no chinese toys," but go ahead and try to say, "no chinese tvs" and you'll quickly realize that you need to cancel your cable service (and return the cable box, which was, oh that's right...manufactured in china)