Breaking an Anvil

Breaking an Anvil
By David Glenn Cox


There are products that are exquisitely difficult to design and manufacture; then there are others that are literally hard to screw up. I had a friend who worked at a plant that made those restaurant to-go boxes. You drop the pellets in one side of the machine and hit Start. The boxes stacked themselves on the other side of the machine. When the counter reached fifty you put the stacked boxes in a plastic bag and sealed it with a twist tie.

To make sheet rock, also called wallboard and drywall, gypsum slurry is poured between two sheets of heavy paper, which is then heated and pressed. The completed product is sealed and stacked. What could be simpler?

Just as, last year, we found out that Chinese wheat gluten used to make pet food exterminated nearly a million family pets, now there is another scandal on the horizon from Chinese-made wallboard. Since 2006 the US has imported 550 million pounds of drywall. It makes you stop and scratch your head and wonder why? Wallboard is cheap to purchase as a building material; it is easy to work with and easy to finish. I could understand importing products that are expensive, but drywall?

Since the beginning there have been complaints of headaches and nosebleeds. Already there are 360 lawsuits consolidated into ten class action lawsuits involving drywall made in China. They were then consolidated into one class action suit before a federal Judge in New Orleans. There are also sixty other cases outside of the class action suits that indicate that this just might be the tip of the iceberg.

Several Chinese companies have been named along with ownership interests from Germany. The Chinese companies named have promised to investigate the charges and the Chinese government has promised to investigate the charges as well.

Specifically the complaints include: structural effects on homes, unexplained nosebleeds, asthma and skin irritation. Even more troubling are reports of metal corrosion in air-conditioning units, copper pipes and electrical wiring.

Dr Patricia Williams is a leading toxicologist and president of Louisiana-based Environmental Toxicology Experts LLC who has studied the issue of Chinese wallboard. "Chinese drywall generates a continuous release of particles. Residents complain of copious amounts of dust that when removed from surfaces reappears in a few hours. Smoke alarms are set off frequently in the same houses due to the dust particles that circulate in the ambient air," said Williams.

"Chinese drywall has a filler that contains concentrated heavy metals from a coal source. Analytical chemists are evaluating the filler and possible coal sources are coal-mining wastes and/or coal fly ash. These heavy metals are toxic and when inhaled can concentrate in the body. Strontium is one of the concentrated heavy metals.

"Strontium is believed to be responsible for the release of the sulfurous gas emissions. The most commonly detected sulfur compounds that are emitted include: carbon disulfide, sulfur dioxide, and hydrogen sulfide. The concentration of strontium is two-10 times greater in Chinese drywall samples that have been tested by our analytical chemist than in US drywall," added Williams. "US drywall is free of sulfur compounds and does not emit these gases."

In a classic case of slamming the barn door after the horses escape, four US Senators have written to the Consumer Product Safety Commission and "directed" the CPSC "to expedite its investigation and testing "of the drywall products in question ... and to carry out the Chinese drywall investigation without delay". Silly me, without any government experience I would have directed that investigation a little earlier. Perhaps 550 million pounds earlier? I don’t blame the CPSC, as they are overwhelmed with toxic toys and baby food and such. This disaster belongs at the feet of all those so-called free traders, Republican and Democrats alike.

Remember, free trade creates jobs! Lawyers, judges, law clerks, doctors, nurses, building contractors, and it gets even better. The estimated cost of repair to remove the toxic Chinese drywall and replace it is around $75,000 per home. That cost doesn’t include replacing corroded pipes, degraded wiring or contaminated air conditioners from literally tens of thousands of homes.

Williams added, “The general public as well as some of the residents in the houses with the drywall do not understand the acute and chronic health effects of the gases and particles released by the drywall as well as the safety risks of the sulfurous erosion of electrical wiring. The health effects range from acute exposure irritation effects to chronic exposure systemic effects such as asthma and neurological damage, Parkinson disease, lung damage, stroke and much more."

A Louisiana state legislator commented that what is unfolding here is tantamount to Chinese companies dumping "toxic waste" between two sheets of paper and exporting it to the US as drywall. All this from a product that is simple to manufacture and inexpensive to purchase. The “whoops, we didn’t know" defense won’t cut any mustard this time because this isn’t the first, second or third time toxic Chinese products have injured American consumers.

We had a saying when I lived in Alabama to describe someone who was a total screw up, “That boy could break an anvil with a rubber hammer.” Our Congress, who is sworn to protect us, has sold us out and they then feign righteous indignation for the courts and cameras long after the campaign contribution checks have cleared. Indeed, they could break an anvil with a rubber hammer.

The lawyers scratch their pointy little heads and ask the $64,000 question: can these large overseas companies actually be made to pay damages to American consumers? Sadly they answer, "probably not."

next to the ad for their homes if the homes were built with Chinese drywall.
Can you imagine the number of builders that would go out of business? Is anyone in government pushing for disclosure by the builders if they used that drywall in the homes they sold or are trying to sell?
I doubt it.

concerning these deadly products. I think we are somewhat amiss in not laying more blame on the American/Western corporations that commissioned/imported the products. If a company imports a cheap little radio from China, they make sure that it meets certain specifications. The battery compartment has to be the right size with the right connection. It has to receive signal from the right ranges of frequencies. The American company exercises a certain amount of quality assurance. Surely the importer of drywall should also set specifications and exercise enough quality assurance to ensure that drywall is not manufactured with carbon disulfide, sulfur dioxide, and hydrogen sulfide. or heavy metals. Hold theses importers accountable. sue them, collect enough fines that it would be cheaper to use American workers for everything.

In a f'n sandbox!
That's why Daddy put him in the office - " How bad can he fuck up orderin' drywall? Let the salesmen take him to lunch, if he grabs too much ass let me know!"

requires, depend on its purchasing exports from its foreign creditors? In fact, I believe it's the only way most foreign countries could acquire the dollars (the reserve currency) needed to buy the oil, upon which virtually all manufacturing and transport technology absolutely depends. So, it seems to add another layer to the economic nightmare; having to buy goods with all sorts of toxic content. At least, until it's been identified in the products and the exporters have been forced to remedy the toxic flaws.

All at the expense of US jobs of course. It seems like a kind of dystopian synergy, whereby the end results are worse than the sum of the almost supernaturally inept, component parts. Not Adam Smith's Hidden Hand, but that of Milton Friedman and the "Chicago School".

It's not in the interests of any of your creditors to cause a sudden collapse of your economy by pulling out all together in precipitate manner, using another currency in its stead, but the process of incrementally moving out of the dollar appears to have begun in the Far East, in favour of the Chinese Yuan.

Iran too has begun to offer its oil to other countries for other currencies, and I believe that may be why the US Government is being so IDEALISTIC about the plight of Moslem women and the installation of a putative, secular democracy, there. I think I read that Saddam Hussein had threatened to do the same as regards the dollar as the reserve currency, before, in the intervening period, the US seemed to lose a certain amount of its international clout.

Of course the Republicans want war with Iran, but it's a much stronger country than Iraq was, and that doesn't seem to have been an unqualified success. Although, if the US retains a poultice on the oil in Iraq, a strong military presence via their numerous bases, and a large number of mercenaries, perhaps it was from the twisted angle of "real-geo-politik". Not that I could see the Moslem "irregulars" ever giving up, as long as the US has its effective control of the oil.

However, the nexus between oil and credit is now so out of balance, that Dmitri Orlov predicts that funding the extraction of oil, and consequently its continued, wholesale industrial use will soon become impracticable: the end of economies based on industrial growth, in favour of the eventual development of sustainable economies.

I hope someone will kindly correct me, if I've got this all muddled up.

China took our toxic junk "securities", we bought their toxic fake gluten and contaminated wallboard.