The cost of cheap labor

First, it was the "dirty" White Rabbit scare that rocked the boat. Then, the "over-leaded" Mattel toys that further rocked the boat. Now, it's the melamine time bomb that is poised to wrecked the boat.

Many countries are starting to detonate their respective melamine bomb by banning all milk and milk-based imports from China. In fact, in some jurisdictions, all China made food stuffs are being put on hold for further testing before allowing them back to proliferate in the marketplace.

It's true that the cost of direct labor in China is cheap. But look at what happened? The costs of the final output, if not substandard, are toxic and dangerous.

If multinational firms think they are achieving great savings, then they better think again. The amount of those products being banned and pulled out had cost them around thirty or fifty times more.

Maybe it's time to reconsider other labor markets as well that are a notch higher than China's standard wage, but could provide better quality outputs.

Try the Philippines. Most of the people here are multi-skilled and can talk very good English. Plus the amount of property lease is competitively lower than the lease rate of some developing and emerging markets.