Chris, I am sorry but your Indian friends of today are not the Indians of the 1600s to the 1800s. You missed my opening the subject so I forgive you this.

Since I know that you nor anyone else will actually take the time to look it up, I offer you this from my own anthropological and palentological studies: Life in America was not the cushy socialist existence that current 'in vogue' propaganda would have you believe. There was constant warfare and raids happening between tribes of Indians in America. When a raid came, the women would run and hide (if possible) with the children. A crying squalling baby would give away a hiding place and that meant capture and slavery at the least, death as a norm. What to do, what to do?
Indian mothers of that period from day one would put their hands over the baby's mouth and nose when they first made an attempt to cry and smother them. They did this repeatedly and consistently until it was ingrained in the child that crying brought instant near death, pain, and fear. They learned to not cry, ever.

I have no doubt that your 'in vogue Indian friends' will deny this happened; but I go with the historical recordings. It happened and it was effective.

I taught my children with the same efficiency, consistency, and fearlessness. Oh, I did not prevent them from crying per se, but if they came to your house they would not touch a thing, tear up or destroy a thing, they would not make a idiotic fuss in a restaurant or store, and they ate what was on their plates. In other words they received education and discipline, and I loved them dearly.

I look at kids today, my step-grandchildren, and others that I see in public, I read of their behavior in schools, and it all makes me sick to know that people are so afraid of their own kids that they let them dictate how the home will be run.

I never said that I pass on my parenting responsibilities to a manufacturer. But, if a manufacturer sells a product which is dangerous if used as intended (and it's not an inherently dangerous product, like dynamite), then that manufacturer should be responsible for the harm caused. It's not really a question of responsibility as much as it is causation: If A hurts B, then A has to compensate B for B's harm. You seem to be saying: "If A hurts B, but C, through the exertion of sufficient effort, could have stopped such harm, then A does not have to compensate B."

I didn't find your original reference to Indian babies (was it in this comment thread?), but I have several Indian friends with babies who cry and teethe and put things in their mouths. If you have been effective at keeping your kids from doing such things, I would love to hear how you did it.

Dear sir, we could continue talking past each other for eons to no avail what-so-ever. You come from a different world than I.

"Busting the butt" of an 18-month old is hardly effective or feasible."

Now is that really true? NO. Did you read the part about the Indian babies that did not cry or squall no matter what? Did you invest even one nano second of thought to that question? No.

Teaching a child begins on day one of its life and if you think anything else then you and your children are lost….like so many I see today.

It has never been a question of when or how capable babies are of learning….the only question is when or how capable are you as a parent of teaching.

Com'on now be an honest curious person, find out how Indian mothers taught their children not to cry and when they began that instruction. Open your eyes to reality, kids can learn, do you have the courage and ability to teach?

They are your kids and you always have the primary responsibility, you can not dodge that and claim to be a truly loving and interested parent. You can not pass that off to a manufacturer or to a government and remain honest with yourself.

It's that simple and government does not need to be involved in any way.

Babies teethe. They put things in their mouths. It's part of being that age. "Busting the butt" of an 18-month old is hardly effective or feasible.

Legally, the manufacturer has the greater responsibility. If you sell something, intending that it will be put to a specific use and the product is dangerous when used in that manner, the manufacturer should be liable. Heck, it makes the most sense for the manufacturer to be liable — the manufacturer has the greatest information and control over the product and is in the best position to make sure that products are safe.

Lead Paint is an especially good example — what parent can look at a product and determine that it's been painted with lead paint? Should each parent have his/her own testing kit with which to examine toys?

I'm not claiming that parents should be absolved of responsibility — if they negligently allow their kids to play with something dangerous, they should be held responsible.

God/Nature, take your choice, didn't much care about you, me, or our kids when the world was made, and it certainly wasn't made sqeeky clean, sterile, soft, and comfy eveloping with security. No, there are things that kids can put in their mouths, sharp points all over, heavy things to fall on them, critters to bite and kill them, the list of hazards is endless. That is the world I was born into, I don't know about you. And it is an utter fallacy that young children can not and should not be taught behavior that increases their odds of growing to adulthood. Instruction in behavior can start from day one, it has been done, and has been proven to work and be effective; all without harming a single child. If you doubt this then do some research on this: when the Europeans came to the new world they observed cultures from tip to tip of the Americas where children did not cry. There were no squalling brats. And, the Europeans could not fathom it. Now do some research on why that was and you will see that teaching behavior from day one is possible if one is a true sincere loving parent who wants to see a child grow to adulthood.

The reason it isn't done is that parents today refuse to accept their responsibility to be stronger than their kids and to teach their kids. The worst part of it is that we have developed a society, a culture in this country that encourages parents to be cowards when dealing with their kids.

What we have now is make a plethora of laws to criminalize everything and push the responsibility off on to the state. There is a name for this way of life. It is called socialism….the state is God and has all responsibility so it isn't necessary for you, STRB, to take the time or make the effort to teach and discipline your kids or grandkids.

A Reagan conservative, yet your words as written in comments show over and over just how cozy you can be with the socialist view point.

The truth is frequently rude, and my truth remains: if your child or grandchildren reach age three without having learned not to put potentially harmful things in their mouth then one of two things is true, and I stated those options above.

And, Chris, of course the toys were targeted for small children…..they are called toys. Toys are for the amusment of small minds: But, dear sir, so what? Does that alleviate you of your parental responsibility to make sure it is safe if safety is a worry to you? If you buy a toy for your child that has issues where the safety is a doubt in your mind and you do not personally tug, push, twist, and squeeze until you are satisfied then who has the greater responsibility if your child does twist off such as a magnet and swallow it, you or the manufacturer? I don't care if there is lead in the paint, your child would have to eat an enormous amount of it before he could get enough in his system to harm him, and My God, if you haven't noticed him doing it before then and busted his butt good for chewing on his toys, then who has the greater responsibility you or the manufacturer?

As the world is just so big and hazardous, with so many things that can harm the human body, it just makes more sense to me to teach youngsters from the git'go to not put things in their mouths, stuff 'em in their ears, poke their eyes out with sharp objects and to handle those sharp objects with care, not to put their hands in fire, or stick hairpins in electrical sockets, not to attempt to play with snakes or spiders of any kind etc. etc…….rather than use the government to pass laws against the very earth itself in our seeking of safety for kids without our own personal responsiblity being called out.

I agree with you in that neither government nor corporate behavior has any concern, whatsoever, for people they affect. However, your implied assertion that I should rely on the self-interests of a corporation, because they marginally coincide with my own, ignores the truth that many, many companies are happy to kill you as long as they get your money.

Now, as in the current case, Mattel may be an exception to my "rule of skepticism" but only barely.

While I'm not a huge fan of government, I'm also not a fan of playing Russian Roulette with every product I buy, hoping that Company X wants my repeat business more than they want a quick buck. Unfortunately, all too many businesses prefer the quick buck.

If, as you proffer, I should trust corporate behavior because it marginally coincides with my interests, then, pray tell, why are we seeing so many huge recalls – toys, pet foods, laptop batteries, tires, ad nauseum – from China? Does this "coinciding interests" rule hold true in these cases, or should I only trust large companies like Sony and Toyota?

In general, your assertion that corporations are more trustworthy than government is one I can agree with. After all, there is no group *less* honorable than government. However, comparing bad to the worst does not make the bad better.

Having at least a little oversight by government in instances like these makes a lot more sense to me than just trusting the company to do what's right.

The problem is that the products in question were targeted at small children who do put things in their mouths. If I see a toy that says 'for children ages 1-2,' there's an automatic implication that the toy is *safe* for children ages 1-2 (who put things in their mouths.)

Sure, parents can teach their kids not to put things in their mouths, but that process takes time. In the meantime, are those kids supposed to not be given toys, or only given toys if the parents can watch them every second, to make sure that some small piece doesn't break off?

I'm a Reagan conservative ( a real conservative not the Bush corporate whore type) and quite a responsible fellow.

My oldest grandchild is three years old and quite well behaved but he is is still 3. Bob Eckert (CEO of Mattel) is supposed to be responsible for his conduct too.

You are quite rude and nasty, perhaps you spend too much time being a dittohead. Perhaps you just hate the whole world.

And the only person I ever sued was the guy whom after consuming too much malt liquor, drove 85 in a 35 and hit my car at a stoplight. I guess I'm just weak or something.

Vid, I feel sorry for you. My 3 year old grandson has better manners.

"On the magnet issue, this has been an issue for years (I'm a protective grandpa) and design flaws should have been corrected many years ago."

It just doesn't occur to you guys that if you truly were protective you'd do whatever it takes to teach your grandchildren or children not to put things in their mouths. My parents did in a very effective way and I never put stuff into my mouth that I wasn't aware that I could choke on it if I wasn't careful. I didn't eat paint even though I came from a poor family and was often hungry, and I didn't poke little metal things into electrical sockets.

I got my hands slapped early on, felt a little pain, and learned. Are your grandkids so stupid that they can't learn, or are you so stupid that you can't teach?

It is the strangest thing the design flaws in the very earth just offer so much potential to kill us if we are stupid. Pebbles are always available to little kids to put in their mouths. Strange poisonous plants are around to kill or make ill. Rather than try and correct the design flaws of nature, my parents corrected the design flaws in me.

It's probably too late for your grandkids, you've made them into little liberal thumbsuckers who will never take responsibility and who when harmed will always blame some one else "for not telling them or not preventing them".

And, yes I have a rough tone to my comments and that is because I see your kind and your kids kind, and your grandkids kind every day in lawsuits and I am sick of you all.

I think you're getting the math a little wrong there. You can't just compare the cost of the recall against the cost of the quality control system–you have to use the cost of the recall multiplied by the likelihood that you'd need to do one. The math might have been:

It will cost us $50M to do quality control. If we don't do it, there's a 20% chance that we'll need to do a recall that will cost us $200M. $40M (20% of $200M) is less than $50M, so we won't do the QC.

Of course, had they known that the recall would have been necessary, they would have made the opposite choice. But, I just call that hindsight, not an original mistake.

I know that playing the lottery is a bad deal, so I don't play. The fact that the number I would have chosen comes up does not mean that I was wrong to refuse to play — it was the best strategy at the time.

I think it is far more likely that Mattel screwed up and made a mistake. It is hard for me to imagine that a large recall is less expensive than a system of quality control, leaving aside the issue of damage to the brand.
However, if Mattel, in fact, made the right business decision, wouldn't that indicate that it delivered what consumer's wanted– a lower priced, lower quality product?

So the market is working correctly, right?. In an effort to pursue its self-interest, "increasing profits" Mattel "ignored quality and safety" and "now it will pay" for its mistake.
So perhaps in the future, Mattel in its efforts to increase profits will not ignore quality and safety so that it will not have to pay for that mistake again.
The market doesn't guarantee that companies will always make the best business decisions. It just penalizes companies that do not deliver what the consumer wants.

Hindsight is always 20/20, so perhaps it's a bit unfair for me to criticize Mattel for what it did not do. However, a normal part of project planning is risk management — the process of getting all the stakeholders into a room looking at a situation, deciding what could go wrong, and then deciding what to do, if anything, to either reduce the risk or mitigate the damage. (And then meeting periodically thereafter to re-evaluate.)

At some point, Mattel decided to out-source to this Chinese company. I find it hard to believe that the quality-control person in the room didn't ask "how are we going to do quality control?" In fact, I suspect that the question was asked, and Mattel chose a mitigation strategy (recalls) instead of a risk-reduction strategy (stronger oversight of the Chinese manufacturer).

If I am correct, then that tells us something about what Mattel viewed as the various costs — a recall strategy, even though it damaged the brand, was preferable to a monitoring strategy, which didn't. And, that choice indicates a low value placed on the Mattel (and Thomas-the-Tank-Engine) brand.

Now, it is possible to try to use force to coerce a better offer, but where can the money come from to pay for this sweeter deal? Right, it still comes from the customer. So now you have to pay for the offer of violence AND the product itself.

In the next breath they announce their new safety program, including testing paint, testing more toys, random testing and explaining the safety programs to vendors.

IF statement #1 is true, then the toy industry is a disaster area.

On the magnet issue, this has been an issue for years (I'm a protective grandpa) and design flaws should have been corrected many years ago.

Mattel increased profits by ignoring quality and safety, and now they will pay.

Chicken reminds me. There is a branded type of chicken. It it Purdue. this is one of the greatest marketing campaigns in modern history where they managed to take a pure commodity product and produce a brand that customers will pay more for. But do you know what the real difference is between a Purdue chicken and the unbranded chicken in the next shelf. Yellow food dye. That is it Purdue injects his chickens with yellow food dye so there skin has a yellow hue. He then advertises that his chickens are better and the yellow skin is proof of it..
But except for the dye they are identical to the other chickens and even go through the exact same government inspection process.
Yet he charges a premium for this.

save_the_rustbelt, You say "Mattel has trouble putting together a recall without a boost and some organizational help from the CPSC.", according to who? You? Your own interpretation of the events? I see the article merely reporting that they were coordinating with the CPSC. YOu also say "Mattel accepted outsourced products manufactured and packaged for final sale, apparently with no quality controls other than faith in the manufacturers." Again, according to who? You? No quality controls? None? Nada? Or just none that happen to catch this problem?

To your comment that companies, like Mattel, will always work to produce the absolute best product because of the profit motive (long-term sales) is a great theme for the classroom, but falls far short of reality.

Yes, companies DO want our loyalty – but not at the expense of the current quarter's profit. Very, very few manufacturers are willing to bypass a profit opportunity in the short term for some nebulous product-position in the long-term.

I realize that anecdotes aren't data, but here goes one anyway: Having worked for several large US manifacturers at various points in my career, I've never observed even one of them ever discuss making the "best" product. To the contrary, the only thing that is on the horizon – both short and long term – is how to move as much product, with as little effort, cost and investment of resources as possible.

To anthropomorphosize a corporation and assert that "it" cares about consumers simply doesn't wash. The people who run manufacturing facilities are interested in doing the minimum work for maximum profit while staying just this side of legality. Doing any more than that is a waste of resources and a dimunition of profit.

I don't trust a corporation any further than I trust the government. Neither of them have my interests at heart – no matter how many lies they tell.

For you to take from my remarks that government will *ever* work in the best interests of the citizens shows an amazing inability on your part to comprehend English.