There's a big story there. Mattel does huge business with China. So do most other Toy companies. Wal-mart is always looking for a better deal and a cheaper product to increase their profit margins.

Mattel was telling them ix-nay on the discounting angle and so Wal-mart contacted Carter Bryant, a freelance design artist working for Mattel and hooked him and a few others with Isaac Larian of MGA Entertainment which was making computer games and selling them to Wal-Mart and who also was already working with Chinese manufacturers.

The Bratz were born. And Wal-Mart immediately gave them huge shelf space. Not surprisingly Wal-Mart makes twice as much on the sale of a Bratz doll than they do on a Barbie doll.

The Mattel folks knew who sold them out and conspired against them, but they still needed Wal-mart. Shelf space is everything when it comes to introducing and selling toys. So Mattel sues MGA and MGA countersues because Mattel came out with MyScene dolls, which are halway between the slutsville look of Bratz and the (comparitively) wholesome look of Barbie.

Isaac Larian is now rolling in bucks thanks to Wal-Mart's little backstabbing of Mattel, but if the courts come down on MGA, and they will since Mattel has all sorts of material evidence including files, e-mails, computer logs, etcetera, then MGA will be going out of business pretty soon.

So how do the lead paint incidents figure into this? Well, let's just say you can bet MGA wants to cost Mattel as much money as possible before the trial concludes and they are forced to close their doors. They know that most of the Chinese manufacturers use lead in all their paints. No one ever bothers to test stuff. In fact, it safe to assume that US manufactured products, prior to the lead ban, actually had less lead in them than do the countless painted Chinese products produced after the ban. China uses lead because it is the cheapest way to make paint adhere fast. With what amounts to slave labor toy factories working 18 hour shifts, and with 12 living to a room on the premises and with the toys manufactured at astounding rates, they literally can't wait for paint to dry and so leaded paint is the solution, as lead helps create an instant molecular cohesion to metal, plastic, rubber, etc. And this is not just true for toys, but for all painted products. It's no "accident" and it wasn't done just to save "money on paint", it's just the time/quantity/quality equation at work, and leaded paint is the solution to that equation.

The stakes are high. Mattel makes about 3 billion a year in Barbie sales down from about 5 billion before Bratz were created. MGA now sells nearly that difference amount in Bratz, roughly 2.5 billion, thanks to the shelf space already cleared for them at Wal-Mart and other chains that like the bigger profits they make on Bratz like K-mart, Target, etcetera.

Each toymaker knows where the industry is vulnerable to scrutiny, and leaded paint is a huge one. When billions are at stake, just as they are in Iraq, folks become ruthless and literally don't care who has to be crushed to collect their money.

It's a warning for capitalists - don't get too greedy and never sell your soul for that extra bit of gravy on the plate. It will come back to haunt you.