Prior to about 1960
Prior to about 1960, white lead (lead carbonate/lead sulphate) was the principal white pigment in primers and topcoats in both the US and the UK, in addition some red, yellow, orange or green lead-based pigments (lead chromates) found limited uses in certain coloured gloss paints and wall paints. Decorative paint manufacturers discontinued the uses of these in the early 1970s.
So you guys, all your Pre 1960 furniture with paint most likely contains lead... and it has nothing to do with the 'Chinese'
Should you decide your furniture is too dangerous to live with, be sure not to set light to it.
If you can read Finnish or have good translation program...
...this Forum tells who are our worst enemies.
http://www.network54.com/Forum/171225/
Collective criticism of a people...
is as dubious as collective punishment of a people. If the history of industrialization is any prologue at all, some of the best quality products will eventually be made in China. It happened in England, which initially leap frogged ahead of France by making mass produced junk and then later learned to make high quality mass produced items, before slipping into an eclipse of quality. Like wise for USA where we leap frogged England by making mass produced junk and later high quality mass produced items followed by an eclipse of quality. Likewise for Japan which started out making mass produced junk, then the best mass produced goods, and is now probably just starting its migration to its eclipse in quality period.
Maybe China will be different, but I doubt it.
Gee whiz, DC.....
In the US, because of the decisions of our government, most goods are being produced in China or Mexico
Lately, the quality and safety of good made in China have come under fire.
No one is making this stuff up and no one is blaming the Chinese people, for God's sake.
It's the fact that apparently enough Chinese factories are using lead and other unsafe products to make these items.
so, one wonder about the cut-rate processes of the furniture knockoffs being made in China....thus it was brought up on this forum.
Why does this surprise or upset you?
thanks, hp
thanks for the john ruskin quote [please see above].
years ago i did some self-directed study on the arts and crafts movement. of particular intrigue to me were the philosophical under-currents that resulted in a revival of pride in craftsmanship and good-old work ethic. in our throw-away, who-cares society, i like to be reminded of solid, time-honored values and guiding principles. it gives me strength in the journey.
super toxic kids toy
read all about it!
My housemate and I were joking about how the beads are gonna be hitting the streets soon, imagine how much a packet of the things would be worth!
But its not really funny.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/11/06/1194329225773.html
barrympls...
I am neither upset, nor surprised.
The history of industrialization evidences a developmental process that recurs in each case of a nation of persons being made into the next cheap manufacturing base that offers greater economies of scale. I was pointing out that tendency out and the likelihood that China was go through the same process and eventually wind up producing high quality goods. It is almost a certainty that this process will play out.
I was not at all condoning the Chinese putting harmful materials in their products, simply noting that this sort of thing has happened previously in societies that were in very early stages of emerging as the next manufacturing base. Read some economic history of early manufacturing in USA. It was really quite hideous. Some manufactures would put most anything they could in products that would lower the cost, so that low price point that had to sell at as a newby could generate profit.
Frankly I would be surprised if the Chinese were not putting lead in their stuff, if its cheaper than healtful material. They are relatively unregulated. They are in a early rapacious phase of managerial capitalism. They are selling to the low end of an increasingly uneducated market. They have a surplus of people in their own country and so do not value life in quite the way we in the west do (sometimes).
Regarding my admonition not to paint all Chinese with the same broad brush, it only seems sensible, not PC. When USA used to produce crap in its early phase, there were some very high quality producers as well. I am sure there are some high quality Chinese producers, and some higher quality producers, but for now, the majority are rapacious young capitalists.
Finally, a country like the USA that allows triple doses of mercury in our Mumps/Measles/Rubella vaccines for years while suspecting for quite sometime that it was causing Autism, is not really in much position to look down its nose at other countries moral values. And since we have torture prisons, a massive prison population, and are using prison labor in somewhat the same way that China does, our once moral high ground is increasingly just another gully.
I want to regain the moral high ground, but the way to do it is by making common cause with the Chinese and making doing the right things profitable for both. If we don't, we are most certainly headed to war to determine who conquers whom.
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