...is not a good idea. This morning there was a report in the Sydney Morning Herald about retail chain Farmer Charlie's (now there's a name for a top class purveyor of goods...) selling toothpaste from China which apparently has an ingredient added which is more normally found in the anti-freeze in your car engine. Presumably it stops your teeth freezing together on cold mornings - always a potential problem, I admit - but it can also kill you. But at least your pearly whites will be aglow when you step through the pearly gates and it should give St Peter something to think about - let's hope he is wearing his sunnies.
Then there are the blankets and duvets, made in China, which have been found to have killer amounts of formaldehyde amongst their soft, downy fibres. Apparently most of these have been sold to old people's homes where no doubt many are getting the kind of deep, peaceful, possibly never-ending sleep that previously their old bones could only dream of.
Now, I also hear that Australia's other main food retailer, Coles - they are the ones who keep trying to sell themselves to private equity firms but are finding it a bit hard to even give themselves away - have 200 people shopping in China for goods which can be sold here on our supermarket shelves.
Thanks, but no thanks.
And (yes I know, all my sentences today start with only a passing acquaintance to proper English, but I'm just trying to fit in) every time I go into Woolworths they have another load of made-in-China products. The latest is toilet paper. Oh yes, that makes sense, doesn't it. Chop down Chinese trees, make them into toilet paper and then put them on a ship to Australia and sell them cheaper than the Aussie-made ones.
You can see what Woolies and Coles are up to (and just about every main retailer, I mean even Farmer Charlie is at it). Their cheap Chinese goods will price out all the other competitors, most of whom are Australian companies and Australian farmers. Only last month SPC, the Aussie tinned foods company, had to dump 10 per cent of their tomato farmers because of cheaper foreign tomatoes, though in fairness most of the offending cheaper toms are from Italy, which is also bizarre when you think that being on a ship for two months is less expensive than growing them in Ballarat.
The other thing is this, most of the garlic in the shops here is from China these days and while you can be sure they slop all sorts of pesticides on it and god know's what else (that's why it's so white, a bit like the teeth really) that we wouldn't give house room to, the Aussie quarantine people spray it when it arrives with a pesticide that has been banned everywhere in the western world because, well, it's a dangerous chemical that causes cancer.
The good thing is this, if you're a Woolies shareholder your shares should keep going up. Now, whether you'll be around long enough to make the most of your wealth could be another matter, especially if you like your garlic and a good night's sleep under an inexpensive duvet...
11/06/07 @ 14:07