Wednesday, October 08, 2008 Ledesma: Insatiable greed By Jun Ledesma Sunbursts
IN THE beginning, God made the heaven and the earth, man and woman, and others all within seven days. The rest that came thereafter were made in China. This tickler surfaced after the latest melamine scare gripped the world at a time the United States economic meltdown is taking its toll in what used to be the formidable bastions of capitalism.
There is a striking commonality in the crisis that stalking these two major power. GREED. The insatiable thirst for profit no matter how and what it takes. In passing on mortgage instruments from one institution to the other, those in the take hid the rotten commodity in elaborate packaging. But the stink cannot be subdued.
In China, manufacturers laced milk and confectionaries with industrial melamine compound so that the protein standard required in the products will be achieved. Melamine is used in plastics and resin-impregnated products so imagine what happens to the milk, which your infant child takes. More than 54,000 infants were brought to various hospitals in China and so fat four children have perished because of melamine-laced milk.
This is not the first time that melamine was figured in mortality. Not too long ago the US imported dog and cat foods from China and thousands of pets died after being fed with this melamine contaminated products. Because the victims were merely animals not much were reported about it. The Chinese authority, I think, must not have even bothered looking into who was behind it.
Since the authorities just shrugged it off, the culprits are back and this time it's formula milk products was the target. Apparently, it is not only milk that they laced with melamine. It looks now that chocolate products, candies and who knows, maybe other food additives that makes Chinese cooking so palatable maybe tainted with the substance too.
It will take a while before the public will regain confidence in Chinese products. Presently it is not only food that authorities world-wide are looking into, they are starting to look into whether or not cosmetics manufactured in China do not contain carcinogenic compounds. As a result, people will be avoiding china-made products like plague. The Chinese government should show to the world that they are doing something about this national shame.
In juxtaposition is the loss of confidence in Wall Street. The Americans used to preach to us the essence of corporate integrity. Now we realized that right in the heart of its economic hub is an unprecedented corruption and insatiable greed that made economies worldwide wobbly. All that we hear today is that "the party is over" for the wheeler-dealers. The US government has come to the rescue by providing $700-billion to revive the firms that had been dissipated by the pacmen in Wall Street. We still have to hear the US government running after the culprit. Will the confidence return as quickly as the bailout fund was coughed out by the US treasury?
For all the perceived faults of our government, and the demeaning tag as among the most corrupt country in the world we now start to look beautiful. Already some foreign investors are looking at us. Those so-called scared money which left our shores because of the penchant of the opposition and the radicals to stage people power will, in due time, come back. And there will be more. You see, while many government officials are corrupt, our private corporate enterprises are comparatively more imbued with Christian values and integrity than the materialistic capitalists of New York.
But we will not be spared with the economic tsunami in the US as we had not been shielded from the scourge of melamine that came from China. We have to brace ourselves from the effects of these twin plagues because the worst is yet to come.
