Tainted Chinese vinegar

There are four common kinds of anti-freeze. Two of them contain substances toxic to humans and animals.

Methanol and Ethylene glycol are both poisonous. Then there is Glycerol and Propylene glycol. The first one has a very low toxicity the second one is often labeled as non-toxic antifreeze.

If sufficient quantities of the first two leaked into the vinegar they could feasibly kill you or make you very ill.

edited 26th Aug '11 2:22:08 AM by TuefelHundenIV

Yeah, an effective (if terribly inhumane) way to kill stray dogs is to leave trays of glycol-based antifreeze out for them. They'll lap it up lickety-split and be dead before too long.

Anyway, I'll spend my money elsewhere, given the choice. You can buy from them all you want. They have other markets aside from us to trade with, too. I think they can survive without little old me.

Well I think it'll be fine. So long as the public always holds a proportionate amount of outrage against the appropriate parties involved then the government will have to setup better monitoring systems. I think health inspectors do check individual restaurants and given enough funding, they can ask restaurant owners to... say... not store vinegar inside of a bottle of anti-freeze.

I love how people are dismissing an entire oppressed minority of people as "a bunch of hillbillies" unironically.

No, I have never been there.

edited 26th Aug '11 7:06:21 PM by silver2195

So China is making low-quality goods due to a lack of any kind of real standards?

And we're surprised at this?

Another point for humanity.

The lead paint in toys, tainted dog food, and other charming incidents should have been big tip offs that the Chinese are not up to snuff.

edited 26th Aug '11 7:12:59 PM by TuefelHundenIV

*cough*punitive/protective tariffs*cough*

edited 26th Aug '11 7:14:51 PM by USAF713

This is not a case of a production problem. The villagers who got sick stored vinegar in barrels which used to store anti-freeze.

edited 26th Aug '11 7:16:17 PM by nightwyrm_zero

Shows that they have no standards for health and safety, though. Or, they do, but don't enforce them, which is effectively the same thing...

Bleh, look, it's not a fun, it's poor product safety but it has nothing to do with import/export so there's no point in talking about punitive tariffs. That's about as logical as Canada hiring twenty thousand police officers, because Russia had a serial killer in Moscow.

...I'd advocate the tariffs either way. And, it actually is relevant: it proves yet again that the Chinese don't enforce what few standards they have. If they get away with that in the local market, what do you think they're exporting?

Stuff that is under the control of western corporations and are subject to our laws. If that's not getting inspected, it's the fault of our countries, not theirs.

Tariffs would be more about whether you think protectionism is good or not, not about this.

edited 26th Aug '11 8:26:19 PM by breadloaf

If I advocate tariffing China, it's because it will force their government to acknowledge they treat the people like shit, and act to fix that accordingly, or they don't get to sell their shit here.

This is only proof of the fact that the Chinese government doesn't give a shit past "am I making lots of money?"

Well I doubt levelling tariffs at America would get it to do what I want it to, in terms of helping its people but okay.

The Chinese Government stays in power largely by bribing its people with "infinite growth" and blinding them with nationalistic fervor.

We are powering this "infinite growth." We pull the plug, and the fantasy comes crashing down, and then the government has to answer to the people with no money to waive in their face, and a military is, in the grander scheme of things, useless in the Nuclear Age...

Okay I was going to write a very long post but I should keep it concise. That view is overly simplistic. That's not how their politics work and that's not why the people support the government. It's an excuse western governments make because of the whole "if it's not a democracy there's no possibility that the people can like their country, they're just waiting for a revolution!". Because otherwise we don't have the most superior government in the world.

We don't have the most superior government in the world. We have the least worst (type) of government in the world.

Believe what you will, then. Although the fact that it also gets the flood of cheaply-made Chinese goods out of our economy would be a good thing, too...

We don't have the most superior government in the world. We have the least worst (type) of government in the world. Same difference.

Good luck using punitive tariffs and starting a trade war with China. Just keep in mind that China is currently holding the economy of the US (and many others) by the balls, in a manner of speaking. China currently holds 1.1 trillion dollars of US debt (16% of the total debt). Were they to demand it, the consequences could be catastrophic.

Of course, they are not willing to do so just for the lulz (it would be catastrophic for them too). But it warrants keeping it in mind.

We've got a Mexican Standoff going, but the US has the faster trigger finger. Or, to eliminate the analogy, our economic bombshell is better than theirs...

Not really. The consequences of a Chinese-triggered debt debacle would be beyond hideous and immediate for the US, financially speaking. It would very effectively cripple the US and put them out of the running for a long time.

Obviously, this would also be bad in the long term for China, and that is why something like this scenario is very unlikely, barring some kind of shit hitting the fan at very high speed. However, China would be better positioned than the US to weather the initial consequencies of such an action —the US would be crippled.