Divine Delay

Have you ever heard of the expression Divine Delay? It's when you are delayed or made late for something only to discover that you were spared a catastrophe had you been there a minute sooner?

I can't remember when I first heard this expression but I know it when I see it. This morning, I had to get up early to pick up a friend at 5:30am and take him to the airport. Once at the airport, we were held up by traffic and people parking their cars in the moving lane. Annoying everyone else trying to pull over to the curb and drop off passengers.

After finally dropping my friend off, I headed back home. When I got to the intersection of Innis and Westerville road, I came upon a three car accident that had just happened. All three vehicles were either large SUVs or pick up trucks. That is one accident where, if I had been involved in it, would have surely come out on the loosing side of in my compact car.

Suddenly, I was much less annoyed at the traffic jam at the airport. I was divinely Delayed. I am grateful.

Pondering

I have noticed lately in the news that there have been quite a few recalls of toys announced in the news. Out of curiosity, I checked the Consumer's Product Safety Commission's (CPSC) web site to see what was on the list. What I found was really pretty quite surprising. Since September 2008, there have been over 20 toy recalls. I noticed a few things while reading through the most recent ones on the list. Out of the 20 I looked at, only one of the toys being recalled had been manufactured in the United States. All the others had been manufactured in a foreign country. Eight of the recalls were for toys that contained lead in the paint and all of those were from foreign countries. So these are the things I am wondering:

1. Does the US have a different standard in place that results in fewer toys being manufactured with lead in the paint or other hazards?

2. How much money are these companies spending/loosing due to recalls? (lost revenue, refunds, law suits, attorney's fees and settlements etc)

3. Wouldn't it have been cheaper in the long run to manufacture those toys here in the US and skip all those headaches?

4. With all the jobs that have been lost due to companies shipping jobs over seas, how much control and over sight do they have as to how their products are being manufactured?

5. Wouldn't our economy improve if we brought those jobs back here to the US?

I really want to know, so if you have any insight or thoughts on this, I would love to hear them.