Relating to the post just below, statists also want to be able to tell you who you can buy from and who you can not. A local monthly columnist engages in China-bashing. Prof. Larson (he a professor of history and environmental studies at a nearby college) speaks that "business is good" at places like "The Not Made in China Store". He provides shopping advice:

Here�s a simple metric you can use when selecting toys for kids this holiday season. Make a list of the following three adjectives: cheap, safe and Chinese. When it comes to toys you should be able to find items with any two of those qualities.

If it seems like you�re getting all three in one package, ask yourself if it�s true.

Perhaps those blocks from Vermont might be a better buy after all.

Try substituting the words "Mississippi" or "Africa" for "Chinese" in the adjective list. That sound OK to you still? If enforcement is the problem, as Prof. Larson suggests, then the same set of incentives adhere to the Vermont firm as to the China one.

Prof. Larson suggests that consumers do not "ecognize that safety comes at a cost, as does quality. We can�t have both cheap products and cheap government if we want to avoid future recalls and threats to our children�s safety." So who says we want that? Who says I want someone to protect my safety.

But, our professor of environment goes on, we shouldn't blame the Chinese. We are to blame.

It�s the American companies� desire for ever greater profit, the consumers� demand for ever cheaper products, and the corresponding unwillingness by either to pay for quality or the services needed to ensure product safety regulations are enforced.

You have a right to be unwilling, though, don't you?

China is capable of manufacturing just about anything and at virtually every level of quality. State-of-the-art, high-tech factories in China can engineer and produce goods that are certainly equal to their Western counterparts when asked to do so.

And we do, when high-quality goods matter to us. You seen kids with toys? Or with clothes? They get smashed and torn and broken, often very quickly. Many other times, the toy is played with a few times and discarded. The return on your investment is uncertain. Couldn't cheap be rational?

But a big part of the attraction to Chinese products for retailers is their very low cost, which unfortunately does not come without a price.

That price may simply be lower quality, a reasonable trade-off with certain items. Who doesn�t need a disposable paintbrush or spare screwdriver now and then? But as we�ve seen in recent months, sometimes that cost is less apparent and can take dangerous forms, such as toys contaminated with lead, or as we saw last spring, pet food additives tainted with toxic chemicals.

Of course it comes at a price, AND I PAID FOR IT ANYWAY. Who the hell are you to get in the way of my choice?

We have laws that deal with risky products. The common law has torts that deal with the cost of injurious toys. If a good is cheap but makes no representation of being "100% safe" you have the right to buy that for your child and bear the costs of a lawsuit (which might not be successful.) Sellers of toys who think goods will be more attractive with a "Buy American" or "Made in the U.S.A." sticker on the package can do so. If the goods cost more, you can make the choice to pay or not. You might have a lower accident rate, and if you do, you have an easier time suing. But you might choose to take that chance anyway. Why can't you?

Advocates of toys not made in China are trying to tell people to stop specializing and exchanging, and are decreasing the wealth of the world. Imagine if I had written Prof. Larson's last three sentences this way:

Here�s a simple metric you can use when selecting toys for kids this holiday season. Make a list of the following three adjectives: cheap, safe and made by Chinese workers escaping poverty. When it comes to toys you should be able to find items with any two of those qualities.

If it seems like you�re getting all three in one package, ask yourself if it�s true.

Perhaps those Chinese workers should stay in poverty after all.

You're right, my insert wasn't an adjective. So sue me.

Labels: economics