Poison dog food.  Poison toothpaste.  Lead paint on toys.  Substandard steel tubing.  Mattel recalls.

We have very safe products in the U.S. with exceptions.  China sells you what you want, and deliver what they've got.

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) is working to keep it that way.  They are working hard, and spending much money, to protect the right of outsourcing companies to import dangerous and cheap products.

You have mea culpas, and then back room fights to keep consumers unsafe and in the dark.

Here is what Obama himself said:

Obama, speaking to reporters in San Antonio yesterday afternoon, said that his previous assertion that no such meeting had taken place was based on "information I had at the time."

"It turned out that the Canadian consulate in Chicago contacted my, one of my advisers, Austan Goolsbee, on their own initiative, invited him down to meet with them," Obama said. "He went down there as a courtesy, and at some point they started talking about trade and NAFTA."

Obama said that Goolsbee reiterated the position Obama has articulated on the campaign trail: that trade should be welcomed, but that NAFTA should be renegotiated to include stricter labor and environmental standards.

"This notion that Senator Clinton is peddling that somehow there's contradictions, or winks and nods, has been disputed by all the parties involved," Obama said. "Nobody reached out to the Canadians to try to reassure them of anything . . . . There's nothing more there."

*    An Op-Ed on Renewing "Made in the USA". 

*    We're in a recession.  Bernanke and Paulson won't admit it, but I think Buffett tends to reject the state of denial. 

*    Governments owning businesses.  This is what happens when governments own businesses in other countries.  Geopolitical factors enter in to decision making.  Like Russia's Gazprom now cutting natural gas supplies to Ukraine. 

And their doing it with our money, and our technology.  We got out of the last cold war, looking for a peace premium.  Now we are financing the buildup of another rival. And they are hacking our Pentagon with cyber-warfare tactics.

Here is the China position:

"China pursues a national defense policy which is defensive in nature," Jiang told a news conference. "China's limited military capability is solely for the purpose of safeguarding independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and will not pose a threat to any country."

Right.  Taiwan is the flash point:

"China's sovereignty and territorial integrity tolerate no division," Jiang said.  "We are fully prepared to repulse any adventurous activities towards Taiwan independence and to prevent anyone from separating Taiwan from China under any name or by any means."

And as always, you never know what is really going on.

But international experts estimate China's true spending on the PLA could be as much as triple the stated figure.