The 80% Solution

I've learned that 80% of all the toys you buy in the US are made in China.

I also learned, while istening to an interview with the editor of the Chicago Tribune's China bureau, that there was nothing in the contract agreements with the Chinese that specified NO LEAD in the paint they used to make the toys. Why? Mainly because nobody familiar with lead paint over here thought that the Chinese would use lead paint over there. Why? Because they were stupid, that's why.

I've learned that product recalls are voluntary. Which is why the head of a company over here in the US didn't tell anybody who purchased one of their Chinese lead toys that there was a problem. They simply replaced the offending painted wood piece with plastic. And kept on distributing them. No warning. No recall. No nothing.

I've learned that the consumer oversight commission or something like it with a similar name received a mere 63 million last year to be the watchdog over the safety of products coming into the country. That's half the money it got back in the 1970's.

It goes on and on and on.

The only good news in all this is that the head of one of the big Chinese companies involved in this scandal committed suicide. The east Asians have a culture that says causing humiliation and shame requires an extreme makeover.

But the suicide wasn't because the guy was distraught over the number of children put at risk because of the lead used to paint the toys. Nope. He just couldn't bear the shame of heaping so much embarrassment on his company. 

I wish more American businesses would embrace that philosophy. If upper management has managed to humiliate themselves by endangering the lives of innocent children in their need to satisfy their greed, then they should be required to commit suicide when they get caught in a screw up.

It ought to be in their contracts. Suicide is included as part of the deal to get those 50 million dollar checks they take home each year. If you do anything to mess with our kids, you must die.

I realize that asking people to commit suicide seems kind of harsh. But we now have an entire generation of children who may well be retarded because of lead poisoning. That's a lot of special ed classes to fund. And just think of how many caretakers we're going to have to hire when these kids get old and even stupider. Don't forget, lead never leaves the body, it just piles up.

So in a magnanimous gesture on my part, let just say, because only 80% of the toys sold here are made in China, only 80% of upper management has to off themselves. And I think the guy from Mattel should go first.

I'm here to help.