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ChineseManufacturing posts

Killer bibs! Is recall madness just anti-Chinese sentiment?

Posted Aug 15th 2007 8:00PM by Julie Tilsner (RSS feed)
Filed under: International Markets, Bad News, Products and Services, Consumer Experience, China, Scandals, Mattel, Inc (MAT), Politics

Me. A mom. Presumably the sort of human being who'd be up in arms with outrage over this latest bit of recall news. Instead, I'm rolling my eyes and wondering what's really behind all this recall madness. Is it a slow news week? (not with all the fun we're having with world's credit market meltdown!). Terrorists out to kill our children via poisonous toys? Or is is just our hysteria over China eating our lunch. The lunch we happily sent over to them.

I think it's probably the latter. And that's not to say I have any doubt over whether China is turning out mountains of subpar crap for us. Standards are different over there, after all. And at the end of the day, everyone gets what they pay for, right, Mattel (NYSE: MAT)?

I'm just starting to find it suspect that every day brings new screaming headlines about more poisonous, sub-par products being sent to us from China. Toxic toothpaste! Poisoned pet food! Lead-coated toys! Now it's killer bibs!

Continue reading Killer bibs! Is recall madness just anti-Chinese sentiment?

Fisher-Price to recall one million toys made in China

Posted Aug 2nd 2007 8:15AM by Julie Tilsner (RSS feed)
Filed under: International Markets, Bad News, Consumer Experience, China, Scandals, Mattel, Inc (MAT)

Maybe it's time to look under your kids' beds.

Fisher-Price, a division of toy-maker Mattel, Inc. (NYSE: MAT), is recalling nearly one million plastic pre-school toys because of unsafe levels of lead paint. The toys were painted by a Chinese vendor with whom the company has a long association.

The recall, the second-largest this year involving toys, involves 83 different products made from April 19 through July 6. Toy characters parents (and their pre-school children) will certainly recognize include Elmo, Dora the Explorer, and her pal Diego.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has a full list of the recalled toys here.

Gallery: Mattel toy recall

Continue reading Fisher-Price to recall one million toys made in China

Apple after the bell 08/21/06: lots of negative options press dogging the stock

Posted Aug 21st 2006 4:53PM by Tobias Buckell (RSS feed)
Filed under: After the Bell, Industry, Apple Inc (AAPL)

Apple ended the day at $66.56, down $1.35 and almost 2%. Not the most dramatic of Apple's rough days, but certainly a bit of a bump downwards. Bloomberg reported this morning on the investors suit against Apple over the stock options, which is still generating a lot of negative press for Apple.

Also, the recent news that Apple's Chinese laborers are not being used as near slave laborers is a bit pyrrhic: it vindicates Apple's claim that their overseas conditions for workers are not near-slave labor as was claimed by reporters several months earlier, but it still keeps the fact that Apple uses Chinese laborers front and center in the news. Lots of other companies do this, Apple is not unique, but there are many consumers and investors who are turned off by this. Add to that the fact that there are some minor violations being quibbled about, and Apple isn't being focused on as a provider of cool hardware. And that's where the company shines.

Tobias Buckell is a freelance blogger, futurist, and author who grew up in the Caribbean. He owns shares in Apple.