The Price of Tea in China

By now, we are all acutely aware of the infallible nature of the Chinese version of the FDA. It amazes me that with all their technological and scientific advances, they still consider themselves a 'developing country'. Since the ex-Chinese FDA minister was executed, the events in China have fascinated me. They have had so many episodes of product recalls because of deadly chemicals, poor quality, etc. in their exports, and yet they can still say - with a straight face, and even sounding like they believe themselves - that the rest of the world shouldn't be skeptical of the entire country's exports just because of one company's mistakes. One company?? WHICH ONE??

At any rate, that's not my point. What concerns me, is China's backlash. In their minds, they truly don't believe they've done anything wrong. They believe that they're being unfairly punished when our FSIS officials either hold their products in customs to fully inspect them, or deny them clearance to the States because they don't meet our standards. So how does China retaliate? Instead of taking the criticism and doing something positive about it - like setting standards and working to meet them before they try to shove their sadly below par products onto us - they ban products from the United States from being imported into their country.

And oddly enough, besides being insanely irked at their asinine behavior, this has me slightly worried, because this stuff always rolls down hill. And here's the hill that's being built: China imports a lot of American beef. China starts being stubborn and boycotting American beef (and other food products, to be fair). The States are stuck with more cattle than they had planned. Because there's an abundance of it in the country, prices go down. Cattle farmers get less money for their product.

And if you have cattle that you need to sell, with corn prices being so high (although, with the MASSIVE crop that's expected this year, prices are still high, but have leveled for now), you're not going to keep the cattle on your farm and continue feeding them. You're just going to take it on the chin and hope you make more than break-even. Remember the phrase, 'what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?' In this business? A lot.