AP IMPACT: Chinese drywall poses potential risks
Although I hate to judge before all the facts are in, it’s beginning to
look like a huge set of customers got burned (once again) by quality problems from China.
Before I go any further, I have to say that I have spent loads of time in China. I have very close Chinese friends. The Chinese are like everyone else in the world – hard working honorable people. But, just like everywhere else in the world, now and then someone takes shortcuts with known technology, or doesn’t understand the “Why?” behind industry standard practices, and rarely, there is a real crook.
The great question, though, is “To what degree are the importers, builders and contractors culpable, and to whom?”
The U.S. arm of the Chinese company is swearing up and down that their product meets U.S. standards. Pretty standard rhetoric for muddling the issue.
I don’t even want to get into the legal issues here. They are going to be very messy.
But if you bought a car, and it turned out that the imported, outsourced seats were emitting noxious fumes, I doubt you would turn to the seat manufacturer to resolve the problem.
OEM’s? Know your suppliers, know your supply chain.
Unfortunately we will end up with a ton more government regulation as a result of industry being unable or unwilling to assure its own quality, and that is going to cost all of us.
Kind of makes the term “toxic assets” more real, doesn’t it?
The sad part is; it used to be that if cobbler A down the street sold bad shoes, in a short time he’d be out of business and cobbler B would get all of the business.
Now there are so many in-between companies and laws, and the supply chain is so complex we don’t know who to “put out of business” and who to go to for good product.
I guess if I were to get bad drywall from Home Depo all I can do is start going to Lowes and hope I get different drywall.