Exploding "bath bombs, balls and fizzies"

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reported that at least 13 people have been injured by exploding bath balls, also knows as bath bombs and bath fizzies.

A buildup of carbon dioxide blows the caps off the jars of Spa Factory's Aromatherapy Fountain kits and Spa Factory's Bath Benefits Kits.

Health Canada acknowledged the products were sold in Canada and are in the process of gathering information and will be issuing instructions for consumers regarding the recall. Both agencies agree that comsumers should stop using the products immediately.

These products were sold between August 2008 and January 2009, at Target, Wal-Mart, Sam's Club and toy stores across the U.S. and cost $13 U.S. for the Bath Benefits Kit and between $30 and $50 for the Aromatherapy Fountain.

"The purple caps on the recalled products are found on Spa Factory's Bath Benefits Kit (model 37836), Deluxe Spa Fantasy Aromatherapy Fountain (model 37908), Spa Fantasy Aromatherapy Fountain (model 37837), Spa Fantasy Aromatherapy Fountain (model 54892) and Spa Fantasy Aromatherapy Fountain (model 54857) "

quote source: CBC.ca

The importer of the Chinese product is JAKKS Pacific Inc. of Malibu California and they have recalled 516,000 of the kits so far and are offering replacement caps with vent holes.

CBC.ca goes on to say, "After testing potential solutions, we found that placing two small holes in the caps adequately allows all built up pressure to escape, thereby preventing the caps from flying off," the company said on its website. "

I found the website http://www.jakkspacific.com/ and the Spa Factory section, but didn't find any information about the recall, even when I did several searches on their site using as many key words as I could think of ....

If you've purchased the product or you have questions or concerns'
You may contact the company at — 1-877-875-2557 (toll-free, North America only) or 1-909-594-7771 x560 — Monday - Friday, 7:30 AM - 5:00 PM Pacific Time (GMT – 8), excluding holidays.

You may write to the company at:
JAKKS Pacific, Inc.
21749 Baker Parkway
Walnut, CA 91789

Source: CBC.ca

The Walmart Effect

Its Chinese imports have displaced nearly 200,000 U.S. jobs
June 26, 2007 | EPI Issue Brief #235
by Robert E. Scott

China?s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) was supposed to improve the U.S. trade deficit with China and create good jobs in the United States. But those promises have gone unfulfilled: the total U.S. trade deficit with China reached $235 billion in 2006. Between 2001 and 2006, this growing deficit eliminated 1.8 million U.S. jobs (Scott 2007). The world?s biggest retailer, U.S.-based Wal-Mart was responsible for $27 billion in U.S. imports from China in 2006 and 11% of the growth of the total U.S. trade deficit with China between 2001 and 2006. Wal-Mart?s trade deficit with China alone eliminated nearly 200,000 U.S. jobs in this period.

The manufacturing sector and its workers were hardest hit by the growth of Wal-Mart?s imports. Wal-Mart?s increased trade deficit with China eliminated 133,000 manufacturing jobs, 68% of those jobs lost from Wal-Mart?s imports. Jobs in the manufacturing sector pay higher wages and provide better benefits than most other industries, especially for workers with less than a college education.

China has achieved its rapidly growing trade surpluses by purchasing more than $1 trillion in U.S. Treasury bills and other government securities over the past few years in order to artificially and illegally reduce the value of its currency and thereby lower the cost of its exports to the United States and other countries. It has also repressed the labor rights of its workers and suppressed their wages, making its products artificially cheap and further subsidizing its exports. Wal-Mart has aided China?s abuse of labor rights and its violations of internally recognized norms of fair trade behavior by providing a vast and growing conduit for the distribution of artificially cheap and subsidized Chinese exports to the United States.

China trade and U.S. job loss

Exports support jobs in the United States, and imports displace them. However, an increase in exports will not support the creation of new jobs if, for example, a domestic firm exports parts that used to be shipped to a domestic auto assembly plant, and those products are used to build cars that are then sent back to the United States.1 Thus, the net effect of trade flows on employment must be based on an analysis of the trade balance. This Issue Brief calculates the employment impacts of growing trade deficits by using an input-output model that estimates the direct and indirect labor requirements of producing output in a given domestic industry. The model includes 200 U.S. industries, 86 of which are in the manufacturing sector.2

The model estimates the labor that would be required to produce a given volume of exports, and the labor that is displaced when a given volume of imports is substituted for domestic output.3 The job losses presented here represent an estimate of what total employment levels would have been in the absence of growing trade deficits.4

U.S. exports to China in 2001 supported 189,000 jobs, but U.S. imports displaced production that would have supported 1,190,000 jobs, as shown in the bottom half of Table 1. Therefore, the $84.1 billion trade deficit in 2001 displaced 1 million jobs in that year. Job displacement rose to 2,763,000 in 2006. Growth in trade deficits with China has reduced demand for goods produced in every region of the United States and has led to job displacement in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Source: Economic Policy Institute