With Indian products diw even more faster..
With US products.. die slowly and painfully... and don't even know
it. They owns and control most of the worldwide media networks..
including Singapore's.
A new food scare has gripped the United States, with the US Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) urging people to throw away more than
90 different products, made at a Castleberry's Food Co plant,
from chili sauce to corned-beef hash to dog food, for fears
that they are causing botulism, a muscle-paralyzing disease.
Seven cases of botulism have so far been reported. Most victims
consumed a hotdog chili sauce made at the company's plant
in
the US state of Georgia that has been temporarily closed. The
recall has been expanded to Canada as well.
Castleberry's is owned by Bumble Bee Foods, the largest branded
seafood company in North America - not in China, the evil land from
where all the toxic food and lethal products in the world
supposedly emanate.
The list of product recalls in the United States in recent months
is almost inexhaustible. In March, Ford Motor Co recalled 2008
Super Duty trucks made in a Kentucky plant after reports of
tailpipe fires in the diesel version of the vehicles; in June,
California-based United Food Group recalled 34,000 kilograms of
ground-beef products after they were suspected to have been
contaminated with the bacterium Escherichia coli (E coli); and in
July, Sara Lee Corp began to recall dozens of its whole-wheat bread
brands made at a Mississippi bakery for fears that they contained
pieces of metal.
But the product scares and recalls the US media seem fixated on are
the ones from China. It is the faulty tires, toothpaste, pet food,
seafood and toys with a China connection that are making all the
news, with cover stories, editorials and television programs
harping on how China's "substandard" manufacturing methods are
putting American consumers at risk, how the factory to the world is
actually one big sham, and proffering ways to keep off products
with any trace of China.
As a bonus, the China horror story even has a feel-good subtext -
nothing can match US quality; if China makes goods cheaper than the
US, now you know how: by cutting corners.
This fear of Chinese products is reinforced by administrative
measures. At the height of the product scare, the US government
quickly formed a cabinet-level panel to recommend how to guarantee
the safety of imported food and other products. In this
self-delusional world of policymaking, the Castleberry's and the
United Food Groups do not exist, it is only the products coming
from outside the United States that pose a threat.
Though it was denied that the move was aimed at China, the
announcement came the same day US senators heard testimony from
quality regulators about problems caused by the extremely rapid
growth of imports from China.
That is really what this is all about - rising imports from China.
It is not the Chinese-product scare; what is actually being played
out is the China scare - the antiquated, mercantilist fear of
imports that China's growing economic might evokes.
Chinese exports to the US last year were nearly triple those of
just five years ago. Chinese exports to the United States totaled
US$288 billion, while US exports to China totaled $55
billion.
But according to the Cato Institute, Americans have never earned or
spent a higher share of their income in the global economy than
they do today. In 2006, what the US earned through exports and
income from foreign investments abroad reached a record 15.6% of
gross domestic product. Since China's entry to the World Trade
Organization in 2001, US exports to this country have grown from
$19 billion to $55 billion, an annual average growth of 24%.
Despite the din about how China is getting ahead with its
undervalued yuan, real output of US factories has increased by 50%
since China pegged its currency to the US dollar in 1994.
Despite the rhetoric of how ("substandard") Chinese products are
stealing jobs from Americans rendered powerless by this unforeseen
consequence of globalization, trade with China accounts for a mere
1% of annual job displacement in the US.
By Cato's estimates, at the most 150,000 jobs are lost in the US
every year because of imports from China, compared with 15 million
jobs that disappear annually in the US economy primarily as a
result of technological changes and the consequent increase in
productivity.
Productivity gains have actually taken a bigger toll on employment
in China than in the US. A study by Alliance Capital Management LP
in New York finds that while the number of manufacturing workers in
the US dropped by 11% from 1995 through 2002, in China it dropped
by 15%.
And in any case, Chinese imports in the US are mostly replacing
imports from other Asian countries, not US products themselves. And
manufacturing is no longer the foundation of the US economy as it
begins to de-industrialize as part of a global economic
shift.
But then again, while there is no market for reason, there is a big
one for fear. That is why a Utah-based health-food company has
launched a new label and ad blitz promoting its products as
"China-free". This is despite the fact that FDA records show China
is not even the leading source of contaminated imports to the US.
India and Mexico have surpassed China in "refused food shipments"
over the past year, while the leader in rejected candy imports
happens to be Denmark.
Why pick on China?
It is difficult to ignore the xenophobic, and even racist,
overtones in the attacks against China. When the products are made
in the US, it is just the company that is in focus. When they are
found to have a China connection, even if it is a US company
getting its products made in China, it is the country that takes
the lashes, as if the company has no obligation toward quality
control.
Protectionism needs a popular idiom. Xenophobia needs a whipping
boy. China scare is the product of this marriage of convenience. As
the poster boy of economic success and the visions it inspires of
trumping the almighty US economy, China is the obvious target when
it comes to manufactures. Much of the same is directed at India
when it comes to services, with outsourcing fears often vented by
Western callers in torrents of racist abuses on Indian call-center
workers.
This xenophobia is what lies at the heart of the current product
panic in the US. If unchecked, and recklessly fanned, this has the
potential of derailing the very process of globalization that
developing countries are betting on for a better future. That is
scarier than the China scare.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/IH04Cb01.html
