Naked Capitalism Link of the Day

Today's link: China Controls Our Food Supply, Barry Lynn interviewed by Dylan Ratigan:

Because of our obsession with efficiency over flexibility, our “lowest-price-above-all” philosophy over fair prices for producers, and our acceptance of a monopolistic commercial distribution structure, lots of essential products are now coming over seasons from a single foreign source.
That includes one critical preservative that is in nearly every food in America’s grocery stores, which China currently has a monopoly on.
The issue with getting critical products from one place is that, as we’ve seen over recent years, the world isn’t predictable.  Global disruptions — like an economic squabble with China, a massive political upheaval in the Middle East, or a natural disaster like the tsunami in Japan — have the capacity to topple the very fragile U.S. import structure.  The culprit? Our reliance on monopolistic, single-source production and distribution structure for things we need to survive, says Barry.
China currently has a production stranglehold over a critical chemical compound that helps keep food fresh — ascorbic acid.  We use this to preserve almost all the food that is on the store shelves.  It’s essential to keep food on America’s tables, and we don’t have any control over its production or distribution.
“It was first synthesized by an American scientist, it was first mass produced by an American company.  100% of our ascorbic acid or vitamin C now comes from China,” says Barry.  “In terms of pricing,  just about to the day that the Chinese finished capture and control over our supply of Vitamin C, ascorbic acid, they jacked up the price by 400%,” says Barry.

This doesn't seem to be a smart way of doing business.  As Yves notes, "First rare earths, now this."  Always striving for the cheapest has undermined our manufacturing base, now it is crucial supplies in which we are at others will.  Our oil dependence is also tremendously deleterious to our future.