To: TobagoJack who wrote (45746 ) 1/24/2009 10:00:38 AM From: Maurice Winn 3 Recommendations Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 217865 Mattel had obviously specified "no lead". When buying from suppliers, people are normally stuck with trusting those suppliers to be at least passingly honest and reliable. Trusting Made in China is not something people take lightly. It's a bit like Made in Japan 50 years ago when the quality was a joke. Or buying a British car in the 1970s when the unions promised to go on strike and their job was to ensure cars failed regularly. Before the melamine and lead, I had noticed Sanitarium peanut butter was Made in China. They assured me that their aflatoxin and other quality control standards were met. Sanitarium standards are pretty good, but it seemed a stretch to get products through without poison or other defects. So I stopped buying. They eventually gave up on China. As you say, the primary fault was Mattel's, Fonterra's, Sanitarium's, for being unaware of the need for bullet proof quality standards and brand management. It's basic for anyone in the children's toy business to know that lead is NOT acceptable in chewing range of children. Fonterra was clueless to think they could take a 40% share and have a reliable investment without battening down the hatches to sail in the Made in China maelstrom. 40 years ago my sister was a herd tester in Scotland, checking that milk wasn't watered down. It's not a new concept to dilute milk and currency. Regarding the monetary tsunami, it's not really fraud because it's right out there on public display. For decades the process has annoyed me because I like good quality money. Expecting governments to run good money is silly. That's like putting a fox in charge of the hen house. It's more abuse of power than fraud, but we are used to that from governments - that's their job [abuse of power] I plan to defeat them and replace their fake money with the real thing. So far, so good. Mqurice