U.S. safety officials recalled about 4.2 million Aqua Dots toys this week for possibly containing a "date rape" drug. Australia too announced a ban on the popular toy, sold there in a version called "Bindeez," and Spain also announced a recall.

All the consumer has to do is look at the label. If it says "Made in China," maybe it shouldn't be bought. I stopped shopping in Wal-Marts years ago because of their move to seemingly "Chinese only" products and their exploitive business practices. As poor as I am I can afford to pay $3.99 at another store instead of $3.97 at Wal-Mart. I also take a moment to see where products are made, but in our disposable society, I suppose that doesn't matter anymore. Buy it cheap, watch it break, throw it away, buy another....Is there something wrong with this picture? Oh well, as perhaps one of the most poorly educated countries on the planet, we are ripe for exploitation by a world that does not have our best interests in mind and our citizens have little on their minds except the next American Idol, who is bumped from Dancing With the Stars, or if the camera catches a shot of The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight star, O.J. Simpson..

The booming Chinese stock market was responsible for up to half the earnings growth of companies listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen duirng the first six months of 2007 - a worrying trend that analysts say will exacerbate any market downturn.

After all the booming housing market was responsible for half the rise in our GDP in 2005 and look where the U.S. market is today. Just putting money into something doesn't mean it really increases in value. Because of the fever of investing in the Chinese market, profits increased on average 71 per cent in the first half for the more than two thirds of listed Chinese companies that have published results, but profits from core operations increased only about 35 per cent. This just might mean an upcoming boom of a different sort, namely implosion.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission on Wednesday announced the recall of Chinese-manufactured children's jewelry and toys containing the toxic metal lead, including 250,000 SpongeBob SquarePants address books and journals.

China has poisoned its country; it probably has the largest number of coal fired power plants with the fewest emmission controls, putting the most soot on glaciers around the world; and it has certainly ignored all safety regulations required by the U.S. on products we import. The only major concern China appears to have is the embarassment to China by those officials who weren't savvy enough to not be found out.

Macau's first quarter casino revenues shattered records at HK$ 17.87 billion

Casino revenues in Macau surged again in the second quarter to a record HK$19.57 billion.

Just like a new restuarant, I imagine that for gamblers, Macau is now the place to go while Las Vegas is simply a remodeled restuarant with a has-been lounge singer, Barry Manilow.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a broader import control of all farm-raised catfish, basa, shrimp, dace (related to carp), and eel from China. FDA will start to detain these products at the border until the shipments are proven to be free of residues from drugs that are not approved in the United States for use in farm-raised aquatic animals.

This action by FDA, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will protect American consumers from unsafe residues that have been detected in these products. There have been no reports of illnesses to date.

"We're taking this strong step because of current and continuing evidence that certain Chinese aquaculture products imported into the United States contain illegal substances that are not permitted in seafood sold in the United States," said Dr. David Acheson, FDA's assistant commissioner for food protection. "We will accept entries of these products from Chinese firms that demonstrate compliance with our requirements and safety standards."

During targeted sampling from October 2006 through May 2007, FDA repeatedly found that farm-raised seafood imported from China were contaminated with antimicrobial agents that are not approved for this use in the United States.

Do you think the Chinese are simply going to keep sending us poisoned and defective products as long as we shop at Wal-Mart until they have made enough money to change global economics and politics forever?

A report is out that U.S. officials have told a small New Jersey importer to recall 450,000 radial tires for pickup trucks, sport utility vehicles and vans after the company disclosed that its Chinese manufacturer had stopped including a safety feature that prevented the tires from separating.

Tread separation is the same defect that led to the recall of millions of Firestone tires in 2000.
At the time, tire failure was linked to an increased risk of rollover of light trucks and SUV's.

The company, Foreign Tire Sales of Union, New Jersey, had originally sought the U.S. government's help with a recall, saying it did not have enough money to recall all the tires itself.

The defective tires join a growing list of problematic products with origins in China. A huge recall of potentially tainted pet food in March was followed by widespread reports of toothpaste manufactured with a toxic chemical and toys coated with lead paint.

In October 2005, the company said it became concerned because of a sharp increase in customer complaints about the Hangzhou Zhongce radial tires. In investigating the complaints, Foreign Tire Sales' officials became suspicious that Hangzhou Zhongce was manufacturing the tires without the gum strips or with inadequate gum strips, but the Chinese company denied it.

Hangzhou Zhongce admitted in September 2006 that it had "unilaterally decided to omit the gum strips" in the tires, the report says. The Chinese company was "generally unresponsive" when asked how many tires were involved and what they were going to do to resolve the problem.

Why do we even buy Chinese products when they are poorly made or defective? By the time you factor in how quickly the product fails, the initial low cost doesn't seem to be much of a bargain. But luckily, by giving China its huge trade surplus we can support slave labor, several new Chinese millionaires who will gamble in Macau at Steve Wynn's casino, and China's ability to now fire missiles into space and knock out satellites as shown when China did just that on January 11, 2007, blasting an old weather satellite to bits.