China rejects U.S. pistachios over ants BEIJING — China said Saturday it had rejected a shipment of pistachios from the United States because it contained ants, the latest indication the government may be retaliating as Chinese products are turned back from overseas because of safety concerns. The state television report, which showed inspectors wearing face masks and sealing the shipping container that held the pistachios, indicated an increasing push to show that other countries also have food safety issues. On Friday, a Chinese food safety watchdog announced that shipments of health supplements and raisins from the U.S. had been returned or destroyed because they did not meet quality control standards. China’s food- and drug-safety record has come under scrutiny in recent months following the deaths of cats and dogs in the United States and Canada blamed on tainted Chinese pet food ingredients. Since then, U.S. inspectors have banned or turned away a growing number of Chinese exports — from monkfish to juice to toothpaste — because they contained life-threatening levels of toxins or unsafe chemicals.
'ANTS'? Come on, couldn't they come up with something better than that? They sound like high school kids! And they are running a country of millions! Sorry China, maybe next time we'll send our peanuts over laced with arsonic....now THAT would really be something to bit** about!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
In China today, it’s the economy, not democracy, stupid Jim Hoagland is a nationally syndicated columnist. Jim Hoagland
BEIJING — Tiananmen Square is somnolent this June. Chinese tourists in T-shirts loll in the shadows along its northern perimeter. Two small police cars roll softly by on opposite sides of the world’s largest square to ensure that it stays this peaceful. The eye tells you in this and other ways that China has moved far beyond the uprising of students, workers and some officials that captured the world’s interest and admiration before being brutally repressed 18 years ago this month — the last time I was here. Beijing has become an urban Godzilla since then: Concave, convex and cantilevered skyscrapers march erratically across the ridges of an unending, perpetually smogfilled skyline. These canyons of steel and glass corporate fortresses visually testify that money and material ambition have totally eclipsed the demands for democracy — and honesty in government — that filled the streets in one of the 20th century’s great moments of peaceful public protest. The ear hears this message as well — from China’s Communist leadership, from foreign investors who pour dollars, euros and yen into the world’s manufacturing hub, and from ordinary citizens who speak about the “events” at Tiananmen Square in June 1989 with great caution or undisguised evasion. How obsolete of you to ask what remains of the spirit of Tiananmen, they suggest. After all, the world moved in the same direction after the 1980s, an under-appreciated decade that was filled with mass political movements that I watched upend dictatorships in Poland, the Philippines and East Germany, and which set the stage for the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. The political ferment of the ’80s quickly gave way to obsessive popular concern with money and spreading free markets around the globe that has not run its course. Precisely because it was unfi nished, the Tiananmen revolt still shapes China today, even if in subterranean fashion. A visitor’s eyes and ears do not tell the full story. This country’s Communist government runs nearly as scared as it did when its troops killed hundreds, probably thousands, of protesters 18 years ago. The repression of organized political dissent continues to be a tool of control for China’s current leaders. But their one-party monopoly on power is based even more on providing annual economic growth rates of around 10 percent that bring a highly visible flow of consumer goods and other material benefits to the country’s urban population. The Chinese government does much to encourage the development of the economy and consumption of consumer goods, entertainment and sports. But any political media would be highly controversial,’’ says Victor Yuan, the head of Beijing’s most sophisticated market research and polling company. “This brings a real fever of entrepreneurship and a highly developed Internet culture on every subject, except political discourse.’’ President Bush predicted last week that this dichotomy could not last — that free-market reforms would inevitably lead to political reform. China’s leaders do not share this belief. Neither does the man who ranks as the most important dissident in China today. Bao Tong was a senior aide to Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang and played a leading role in crafting China’s initial economic reforms in the 1980s. But Bao was jailed for showing sympathy toward the pro-democracy demonstrations. Released from prison into house arrest in 1996, he has only recently been allowed such freedoms as meeting with foreign journalists. In a long conversation last week, he confirmed that my eyes and ears were not getting the full story. Yes, there is change. When I walked in the park today, I heard criticism of the government that would have brought death sentences in Mao Zedong’s time. But nothing like this can be broadcast or published in the media. Nothing like this can be said in an organized meeting. Nothing will be allowed that would affect the political situation. “The change you see and hear is the flowers, and the leaves. But there is no change in the root. That is the party’s control over everything, including control over the market. Money is to the leaders today what revolution was to Mao — a tool to control the people,” the 74-yearold former official told me. “The unchanged root is the one-party dictatorship.” So, did the students and workers of 1989 fail? No, Bao responds: “They should have protested, and they did. The party failed. The party violated the constitution and its own charter. It became a Communist Party without communism, without any concern for the people. I feel proud of those who protested. I feel ashamed of the leadership.”
I think that China was retaliating against us for rejecting many of it's products due to quality concerns not just the pet food but some human food too.
Apple growers brace for expected competition from China BY KIMBERLY HEFLING The Associated Press
GETTYSBURG, Pa. — Farmers have been growing apples here since before the Civil War, and as times have changed, they have changed with them, planting smaller trees to speed up harvests and growing popular new varieties to satisfy changing tastes. But the growers who have made this mountainous region the core of apple-growing in Pennsylvania worry that they face a new challenge that may be too big to overcome and could change their way of life. Like farmers in the bigger appleproducing states, they are becoming increasingly anxious about the prospect of China flooding the U.S. market with their fresh apples — an event many believe is inevitable, even if it could be years away. They saw what happened in the 1990s when Chinese apple juice concentrate made it into the United States. Prices got so low, some U.S. juice companies were forced out of the U.S. market. Growers could no longer afford to grow apples just for making juice. With the Farm Bill up for renewal this year for the first time since 2002, apple growers are pressing for an unprecedented amount of federal funding to develop technologies to make harvesting less costly, and aid to develop overseas markets. Even before new questions were raised this year about how well China enforces food safety rules, some growers were also pressing the U.S. government to require country-of-origin stickers on all apples. “We’re facing a threat that we’ve never faced before in terms of their ability to come in and essentially replace every apple that we produce in this country numerically and at a much lower cost,” said John Rice, a seventh-generation grower whose grandfather made money in the Depression era by gathering apples from area growers and shipping them to England in 100-pound barrels. Rice’s family today owns 1,000 acres of orchards and packs and markets apples for 50 area growers primarily in Pennsylvania’s historic growing area in Adams County, on the Maryland border. “We have to lower our costs and we have to do what other successful business have done in the face of Chinese competition, and that is to innovate, to stay ahead, to either grow new varieties that they don’t grow in China, or whatever it takes,” Rice said. Fifteen years ago, China grew fewer apples than the United States. Today, it grows five times as many — nearly half of all apples grown in the world. China’s advantage is its cheap labor. A picker makes about 28 cents an hour, or $2 per day, according to the U.S. Apple Association. In 2005, workers in Pennsylvania made about $9 to $10 per hour, and those in Washington state about $14 per hour, the association said. Discussions between the U.S. and China over whether its fresh apples can be brought into the United States have been going on since 1998. To gain access to the market here, China must prove that it meets U.S. standards for pest and disease control. The U.S. Apple Association said the Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service sent a list of more than 300 insects and diseases of concern to the quarantine inspection agency of the Chinese government in 2003. The Chinese government responded the next year, and then the United States asked for information on 52 pests from the list. The value of U.S. apple production was estimated at more than $2.1 billion last year. About 60 percent of the apples are sold as fresh fruit, and about 25 percent are exported. Pennsylvania ranks fifth behind Washington, New York, California and Michigan in the number of apples grown. Already, U.S. apple growers compete with Chinese growers for sales in parts of Southeast Asia and India. After Chinese juice concentrate entered the U.S. market, the average price for juice apples fell from $153 per ton in 1995 to $55 per ton in 1998. The industry filed an antidumping case but lost on appeal with the U.S. Commerce Department. Today, more than half of imported concentrate comes from China. “It was an uproar within the industry,” said Jim Allen, president of the New York Apple Association. “What can we do? It just takes the bottom right out of our market when the product is being delivered to New York City for less than we can process and harvest it here in the United States.” Like in many areas of farming, many U.S. apple-growing operations have been absorbed by bigger ones. Some smaller remaining operations have survived by selling directly to consumers at farmers markets or developing niche markets selling organic or specialty apples. Third-generation Pennsylvania grower Dave Benner, 61, like most growers, has slowly replaced older larger trees in his orchard with smaller dwarf ones that are close together. That makes the fruit easier and faster to pick. He also pays close attention to consumer demand and to the world market. “Business is still business whether you’re in agriculture production or you’re in commercial manufacturing,” Benner said. “When people want small economical cars, then the automobile industry had to change. When people say they like the flavor of Gala or Fuji apples . . . that’s what I have to be growing.” Because more than half of the cost of growing apples goes toward labor, researchers have been working to develop technology and practices that will help cut labor costs. Among the concepts under development are machines that will allow apples to be mechanically picked without bruising, and platforms that lift up pickers so they don’t have to climb ladders. The apple industry is working with other fruit and vegetable industries to seek, in the 2007 Farm Bill, about $1 billion annually for research, a state block program, a program that helps it develop overseas markets and for expansion for a program that provides fruits and vegetables to school kids. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, called these “basic nuts-andbolts” items that would improve competitiveness. The current Farm Bill, which was worth about $100 billion, passed in 2002 and expires in September. In it, country-of-origin labeling was mandated, but its implementation has been delayed until September 2008 because of opposition by retailers and others who say it is too burdensome. Most apples already carry the labeling, but Mark Barrett, 52, a grower in Washington’s Yakima Valley, said full implementation is the best way to help U.S. apple growers. “I believe if we had country-oforigin labeling that the consumers would buy U.S. all the time,” Barrett said. Allen, the head of the New York apple growers group, said it would be hard to promote U.S. apples as being better than foreign-grown apples if consumers can’t be sure where they have been grown. One bad apple, he said, might give all apples a bad name.
Bank of International Settlements: Credit Boom May Spark Depression
The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) is warning that the global economy could be on the brink of a major depression similar to the one that occurred in the 1930s.
The BIS said that years of loose monetary policy have fueled a dangerous credit bubble leaving the global economy more vulnerable to an economic catastrophe than is generally understood.
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In its 77th Annual Report for the financial year April 1, 2006-March 31, 2007 that was submitted to the BIS’ annual general meeting held in Basel on June 24, the BIS — which one source described as "the ultimate bank of central bankers" — noted that the Great Depression that began in 1929 caught many off guard and unprepared.
"Virtually nobody foresaw the Great Depression of the 1930s, or the crises which affected Japan and southeast Asia in the early and late 1990s. In fact, each downturn was preceded by a period of non-inflationary growth exuberant enough to lead many commentators to suggest that a 'new era' had arrived," said the bank.
Several worrying signs, including mass issuance of new types of credit instruments, soaring levels of household debt, extreme appetite for risk shown by investors and entrenched imbalances in the world currency system, have all made the Bank wary the global economy is at serious risk.
The BIS pointed to China as a possible spark that could cause a sudden global downturn.
The BIS said "China may have repeated the disastrous errors made by Japan in the 1980s when Tokyo let rip with excess liquidity." "The Chinese economy seems to be demonstrating very similar, disquieting symptoms," the BIS claimed, noting China's credit and asset boom.
The Bank described China's booming economy as "unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable" — a comment apparently made by Chinese premier Wen Jiabao. The BIS also took a swipe at the U.S. Federal Reserve, noting that the central bank was rethinking the easy credit policies of former Fed chief Alan Greenspan.
The BIS was not sanguine about the dollar, citing America's huge trade and deficit imbalances with U.S. external liabilities growing to over $4 trillion from 2001 to 2005.
"The dollar clearly remains vulnerable to a sudden loss of private sector confidence," the BIS report stated.
Worrisome too is the bubble created by private equity deals and hedge fund activity.
"Sooner or later the credit cycle will turn and default rates will begin to rise," the BIS said.
"The levels of leverage employed in private equity transactions have raised questions about their longer-term sustainability. The strategy depends on the availability of cheap funding,"
The warnings of the BIS should not come as a surprise to readers of MoneyNews.com. While we are not predicting a 1930's style depression, we have warned that a global credit boom has put that global economy in jeapordy.
Needs and wants have become blurred in alot of cases....alot of new technology in such a short time and at 'reasonable' costs have influenced the choices between needs and wants......not to mention the narcisitic views....
We have become cumbersome......to ourselves.....we have made our bodies indulgences worth far more than the wrinkles, blindness, and dust it becomes.......
Is it all relative???
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Noooooooo...we just became global...simple as that!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Feds find problems, put hold on farmed seafood from China BY ANDREW BRIDGES The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Farmed seafood joined tires, toothpaste and toy trains on the list of tainted and defective products from China that could be hazardous to a person’s health. Federal health officials said Thursday that they were detaining three types of Chinese fish — catfish, basa and dace — as well as shrimp and eel after repeated testing has turned up contamination with drugs unapproved in the United States for use in farmed seafood. The officials said there was no immediate health risk and stopped short of ordering an outright ban. The Food and Drug Administration announcement was only the latest in an expanding series of problems with imported Chinese products that seemingly permeate U.S. society. Beyond the fish, federal regulators have warned consumers in recent weeks about lead paint in toy trains, defective tires, and toothpaste made with diethylene glycol, a toxic ingredient more commonly found in antifreeze. All the products were imported from China. China, meanwhile, insisted Thursday that the safety of its products was “guaranteed,” making a rare direct comment on spreading international fears over tainted and adulterated exports. FDA officials said the levels of the drugs in the seafood was low. The FDA isn’t asking for stores or consumers to toss any of the suspect seafood. “In order to get cancer in lab animals you have to feed fairly high levels of the drug over a long term,” said Dr. David Acheson, the FDA’s assistant commissioner for food protection. “We’re talking not days, weeks, not even months but years. At these levels you might not reach that level, but we don’t want to take a chance.” He added, “We don’t want to be alarmist here. … it’s a low likelihood.” The FDA said sampling of Chinese imported fish between October and May repeatedly found traces of the antibiotics nitrofuran and fluoroquinolone, as well as the antifungals malachite green and gentian violet. Of particular concern are the fluoroquinolones, a family of widely used human antibiotics that the FDA forbids in seafood in part to prevent bacteria from developing resistance to these important drugs. The best known example is ciprofloxacin, sold as Cipro, which made headlines as a treatment during the 2001 anthrax attacks. The FDA will allow individual shipments of the five seafood species into the country if a company can show the products are free of residues of these drugs. “This action will put a hold on the products of concern at the port of entry. This shifts the burden of proof back to the importer to prove to us that it is safe,” Acheson said. China is the third largest exporter of seafood to the United States, according to the FDA. More than half of its global seafood exports are farmed. But only about 5 percent of farmed Chinese fish is inspected by the FDA, agency officials said. The use of drugs in foreign fish farming operations has long been a concern of federal and state regulators. Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi recently banned imports of catfish from China after tests detected antibiotics not approved for use in humans. “Clearly the addition of these drugs, it’s a deliberate event,” Margaret Glavin, the FDA’s associate commissioner for regulatory affairs, told reporters. “If they stop adding them the problem is going to go away.” The FDA acted after finding problems with 15 percent of the Chinese seafood it tested. Glavin said the FDA also has found companies in the Philippines and Mexico using the drugs and has issued similar import alerts for those firms’ products.
Well, I guess this is a learning process for China. They will have to adapt to the regulations of other countries in order to trade.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
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