MoneyMoose

Fortune has compiled quite an amusing list of the idiocy fun things that have happened in the business world. The top one is, of course, the various mishaps of China.

1. During 2007, the Year of the Pig, Mattel is forced to recall almost 20 million items made in China because of lead paint on toy cars and tiny magnets that could be deadly if swallowed. Pet food makers recall more than 60 million cans of food laced with tainted melamine in wheat gluten from China. A huge underground distribution network for steroids, human growth hormones, and other bodybuilding drugs is traced to 37 companies in China.”

Check out the rest of the list for some truly funny stories.

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It’s worked for MoneyMoose - it’ll work for you.

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As we all know, China is the land of lead contaminated toys - just imagine what could be happening to the fish they send to the West. Unlike Aquadots, you’re actually supposed to eat the denizens of the sea and, well, bad things could happen if the utmost care is not taken with them.

To relieve any tension you might have, here’s an investigative looking into the workings of your average Fuqing Province fishing plant:

“Fuqing is one of the centers of a booming industry that over two decades has transformed [China] into the biggest producer and exporter of seafood in the world, and the fastest-growing supplier to the United States.

But that growth is threatened by the two most glaring environmental weaknesses in China: acute water shortages and water supplies contaminated by sewage, industrial waste and agricultural runoff that includes pesticides. The fish farms, in turn, are discharging wastewater that further pollutes the water supply.

“Our waters here are filthy,” said Ye Chao, an eel and shrimp farmer who has 20 giant ponds in western Fuqing. “There are simply too many aquaculture farms in this area. They’re all discharging water here, fouling up other farms.”

Salmon? More like salmonella!

…didn’t like that joke? Well, then, back to the serious sides of the issue. Lets take a look at what these fishers are doing to try to keep their waters clean and their fish alive.

“Farmers have coped with the toxic waters by mixing illegal veterinary drugs and pesticides into fish feed, which helps keep their stocks alive yet leaves poisonous and carcinogenic residues in seafood, posing health threats to consumers.”

The food we give to Fido works for fish too, apparently. Doesn’t that just sound delicious?

“China produces about 70 percent of the farmed fish in the world, harvested at thousands of giant factory-style farms that extend along the entire eastern seaboard of the country. Farmers mass-produce seafood just offshore, but mostly on land, and in lakes, ponds, rivers and reservoirs, or in huge rectangular fish ponds dug into the earth.”

So next time you dig into some juicy jumbo shrimp, just think of all of that fun stuff that happened to it on the way to your mouth. Yum!

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Humorous Work Stories

Here at MoneyMoose we understand that there are some (albeit few) funny things about work. A site called The Customer Is Not Always Right has a very amusing list of real work experiences that showcase the idiocy peculiarity of shoppers everywhere. Although MoneyMoose does not often write about humor, we too can appreciate the hilarity of these articles. Take this one, for example:

(A customer wanders down the paint aisle I’m working on and asks for advice on which paint to use. I tell him, and he asks for the differences between brands)

Employee: “Brand A is just a bit thicker than Brand B. But other than that, they’re pretty much the same.”

Customer: “What do you mean ‘thicker’?”

Employee: “The paint has a thicker consistency.”

Customer: “I don’t understand.”

Employee: “Do you know what cake batter looks like? And water?”

Customer: “Yes.”

Employee: “Cake batter is thicker than water, like Brand A is thicker than Brand B.”

Customer: “Brand A is cake batter?”

(It goes on like this for awhile. I ended up leaving him there to contemplate)

As a service to you, the customer, I have developed a small card that the paint company may pass out to prevent further confusion.

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The Moose has finally found a use for those unbearably humid summer days!

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