The Polar Express Terminates in Beijing Now

China is where 80 percent of Santa's toys are made. That's where his suits are sewn too, the last American one having been tailored at Halco, just outside Pittsburgh in May. The 70 Halco workers who once stitched Santa's fuzzy red and whites got the boot.

They joined half a million U.S. apparel workers who lost their jobs to foreign laborers over the past decade. The "problem" with American workers, whose average wage is $10 an hour, is they just can't compete with Asian workers, who get closer to 30 cents an hour, who may be forced to work 14-hour days, and whose employers frequently ignore health, safety and environmental standards. HoHoHo! Merry Christmas!

If Santa now resides in a communist country of 1.3 billion where his elves may construct toys for American boys and girls in sweatshop conditions no American worker would tolerate, does that somehow make him less jolly?

If the suits he wears are crafted by Chinese workers who don't celebrate Christmas and don't even know who Santa is instead of by 70 union workers in Pennsylvania who now can't afford to fill little Johnny's fireside stockings, does that somehow make Santa's eyes twinkle any less?

If the shiny ornaments sold at Wal-Mart to hang on Christmas trees were spray painted without gloves or masks by Chinese 12-year-olds, forced to work 15-hour days, seven days a week, for half the Chinese minimum wage at the Guangzhou Huanya Gift Co., would that somehow make the cookies left for Santa any less sweet?

Why no, little Cindy Lou Who! Don't be a Grinch! Just Believe! Believe the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission will protect the Whos in Whoville from all that lead and cadmium in those imported toxic toys and from the magnets and small parts that keep falling out and off.

Believe the uncontrolled pollution from making them won't affect you, though there are those disquieting reports of China's fetid air wafting over California.

Believe that the skyrocketing trade imbalance with China will never be a problem and that unlike American companies holding all those sub-prime mortgages gone bad, China will never call in its debts.

Or, alternatively, you could stop just believing and make a list and check it twice. Check whether your U.S. Senators and your Congressman support free trade or fair trade. Free trade is what got us into the mess we're in now. Free trade enables multinational corporations to contract with Chinese firms like Guangzhou Huanya Gift Co. for the lowest conceivable price with no repercussions and no oversight. American companies that once hired American workers at living wages to manufacture tree ornaments are forced out of business when Guangzhou Huanya Gift Co. begins signing its 8,000 employees to "voluntary" contracts to work 15-hour days, 7 days a week at half the Chinese minimum wage. Fair trade agreements, by contrast, require foreign firms to meet international environmental and labor standards, making competition fairer.

Checking the list twice means putting a mark next to the fair trader's name on Election Day.

Also, you could make a list of products made in the USA and buy them. It makes a difference. If all the toy recalls for lead poisoning make you nervous, if you don't trust the CPSC to keep your family safe, buy toys made by local craftsmen and sold at neighborhood shops if you want to keep manufacturing in the USA, make an effort to buy things manufactured in the USA.

Demand proper valuing of the Chinese Yuan or, alternatively, duties on Chinese imports. China has undervalued the Yuan to promote exports by making its products less expensive in the world marketplace. This has acted essentially as a subsidy by the Chinese government for all Chinese exports. The U.S. government, however, has failed to treat it as a subsidy. It could, for example, place duties on the imports that would protect American jobs.

You better watch out. You better not shout. Santa Claus is coming to town. And unless you do something about it, every toy is the sack, every stitch of clothing on his back, and even his big red sled track, will all be made in China.

Comments

[sheila]

i have been shouting the same thing for years - we need to have INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS which require:

- living wages
- humane health, safety, and working conditions
- environmental sustainability

this will "level the playing field" for all goods and services, so that merit becomes the basis of employment and the planet is not destroyed. there are a number of organizations already using these standards for coffee, so i don't understand why they cannot apply to all goods???

simply imposing tariffs won't help anything and will just give our government more money without requiring any improvements. any increased prices should be charged solely for improving health, wages and environmental conditions of manufacturers.

we must also bear in mind that unless there are strict enforcement mechanisms, most of the children who are fired from unhealthy factory jobs will be sent into prostitution, not sent to school.

this whole china mess is no accident, any more than the mortgage meltdown is. both were cynically and intentionally implemented as part of the "false prosperity" program of the bush administration, along with the "false low taxes" program which used ridiculously irresponsible deficit spending (aka borrowing against the next administration) to enrich his BASE. it has been so easy to keep people shoveling cheap material goods into their gluttonous mouths so they don't notice that he and his cronies are becoming immeasurably wealthy and powerful while bankrupting and disenfranchising the rest of us.

we call it a "pyramid scheme" and the right wingers are the masters at it.

[Observer1]

Hey Gerard:
Did you hear about the recall of polycarbonate bottles in Canada and the US. Something about poisoning the water.

Or did you read about the recall of 1.2 million baby vaccines which will create a shortage next year in the US.One year's production is under quarantine.

American wages and working conditions do not guarantee quality. Quality is designed into the process and products. So is productivity.

The problem is not American consumerism. The problem is American Imperialism. We are too proud to do low income work. No. Let the foreign peasant do it. Everybody wants a servant, so that we are the bosses. We are too busy watching TV and playing politics to realise that pride cometh before a fall.

Oh! and the millionaires in America. What are they doing. Well, most of them are running for President, to ensure we get even further into debt while they play their little games.

We elected the idiots who got us into this mess. And we will do it again next year.

[January]

There will eventually be a day of reckoning. But I cannot locate anyone who writes about the topic venturing to predict--certainly not to predict when it will happen, which is most important, but not even to predict how it will happen. I take that to mean we are in uncharted waters. Tirades that pass themselves off as warnings, as this and every other article I have read on China trade have been, are utterly useless.

I had the misfortune in my first business experience to latch on to a partner who was a crook. Fortunately, it only lasted a year and I did manage to get out with my skin intact although not unscarred.

One of the scams was a school he ran for estimating businesses. That is, he would teach you how to estimate the value of a business for a fee. He promised that after you finished the schooling, he would guarantee you would get customers. What that amounted to was that he used some of the money you had paid and return it in the form of income to you.

That's no worse than car sales that pay you to buy a car. I recently saw a realtor ad that offered to pay you to buy a house.

China is paying us (by giving us unlimited credit) to buy from them. Same scam. Just another version of the shell game. By postponing the reckoning, it seems legit for now. Waiting for the other shoe to drop is just a matter of time.

[ljsfolly]

Generic drugs are made in china and is manyother hidden things most have no idea about. How can we get any of the jobs lost to the third world countries and china for sure? We have major companies building factories in Mexico because they work cheaper and demand nothing. All of the trade agreements have led us to where if it can be made cheaper and who cares about quality makes me think isolation in trade may be the best way to go. World trade has helped us how? To buy almost anything made in the US it takes quite a adventure in stores who have less likely spent any money in the US for the item. There are no huge signs telling you which item is still made here. I told everyone no toys this year and I have stuck to it as I want to not be responsible for anyone of the kids I love being made ill for the price of a toy.

[HeevenSteven]

It's just as well. When the polar ice all melts Santa will have to relocate anyway.

[dgscol]

The "trade" with China is far greater than people are letting on. It is not just toys, and the economic activity in China is understated. Since they are paid far less, and the support goes only to the Chinese government, the actual production is better represented by its CO2 output which is as large as the US. This corresponds to what we know - it is hard to buy anything that is not Chinese. Cars are next as we all already know, starting with parts and later cars, as they had in Japan.

This goes beyond "out of control" economic activity. These actions are a matter of national security, and people need to be held responsible for not acting to restore sense to the financial system.

[juliab]

Toy makers and retailers appear to be in the "risk management" business rather than the "fun business" because of the continual squeeze to eek out profits. it's a vicious cycle of course. Is Mattel bold enough to make deep cultural change? That is why, people who are genuinely concerned should visit http://toysnotmadeinchina.org, which launched in October. Over 45 different makers of toys with video references to some of the makers. Stay tuned as we the site is rebranding and providing some helpful tools to shoppers after January 2008. http://toysnotmadeinchina.org

[SCharb]

I think it's time to impose a tariff against China.