Forbes repeats a warning from NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, that Chinese companies are swooping in to other countries to purchase undervalued assets brought low by the Covid-19 shutdown.

‘Watch out for Chinese companies swooping in with buckets of cash to buy strategic stakes, or majority control in U.S. and European companies as asset prices fall due to the pandemic.‘

There are other similar reports from around the globe. Yet the Chinese push to acquire foreign assets is nothing new. As Americans learned over the last month, Smithfield Farms (“Proudly Made in the USA”) is wholly owned by a Chinese corporation, and has been for seven years.

Is that a bad thing? It depends on your point of view. If you are comfortable with foreign ownership of the nation’s largest packing plant, then you are a very trusting individual – or a vegetarian.  The fact that Smithfield Farms experienced one of the worst Covid-19 outbreaks in its South Dakota plant and was forced to close didn’t expand my comfort zone. Many were concerned that the shutdown of this and other meat-packing plants would create shortages in the supply chain. And there were.

After a three-week shutdown, the plant is reopening.  Did we dodge a bullet?

I am uncomfortable with China being our source for a vast majority of our medicinal drugs. There have been and still are shortages in some pharmacy supply chains as a result of the pandemic. You don’t hear much about it because the Chinese government is given a de facto Most Favored Nation status by mainstream media outlets.  It was big news in March, but people lost interest amid the panic of the pandemic.

Should we be concerned that a nation that considers itself our geopolitical enemy has control of our supply of medicines?

It is an embarrassing commentary on today’s post-modern United States that we prefer not to manufacture things. Oh, we want the jobs, just not the factories. The trade off is that our economy is not secure, our supply lines extended and controlled by others.

Our over-reliance on foreign manufacturing is a national security conversation that we should be having … out in the open. It should not be restricted to bureaucrats and think tank “experts.”  A free America requires an informed citizenry. I believe we are still smart enough to make good decisions, and brave enough to see things through when the consequences of tough decisions arrive. And there will be consequences.

As for meat processing, we need to examine federal regulations that have pushed smaller operations to close or be acquired by large operations. Bigger is not necessarily better, and diversity in ownership is common sense economics. It is heartening that many smaller operations, even local butchers, are stepping up to fill the gap caused by a 40 percent reduction in big meat packing production.

Stepping up is what Americans have historically done during times of crisis and war. It is not a stretch to declare that the pandemic has revealed several major shortcomings in the way our country does business. National security-sized gaps.

But our modern attention span is as limited as our willingness to assume risk.  When the pandemic panic is over, will we remember or will we go back to sleep until the next crisis or war reveals them anew?  Will we awaken only to find that it is now too late to do something about it?

So much to say, so little time to write it down, now that the sun is shining a bit more. Saturday was a big outdoor work day: prepping the grow beds for planting, mowing the big honkin’ yard, taking down the Christmas lights (yeah, I know). It was good to get out into the sunshine, build up some additional immunity with God’s own Vitamin D. The worked stretched into Sunday afternoon after “going” to live-streamed Church.

It included dusting several fire ant mounds. You have a problem with that? You obviously have not had a deep personal relationship with fire ants. They are intruders to our latitude and do much harm well beyond their blasted biting.

It was good to get away from social media for a few hours. The level of imbecility and sheer propaganda is hard to take.

A positive of self-isolation is that I am cooking more often, occasionally trying new recipes. But once a week, we will order take-out from a local restaurant to support the “little man” (or woman) who is struggling to stay in business during the Great Covid-19 Panic of 2020. Saturday night’s search for a restaurant was discouraging. So many of the good ones have shuttered for the duration, leaving few in operation.

The longer the rule-makers keep us locked down, the less likely the closed restaurants emerge from quarantine. The fast food chains have fared better because they knew how to do “drive through.” 

We settled on Si Senor, a Mexican restaurant in Wister. They adapted by adding a drive-through and keeping their help busy. Great food, reasonably priced, and well worth the 12-mile drive.

On Sunday, we had pot roast, okra, squash and mashed potatoes, to remind us of God’s bounty (and perhaps a reminder to get those seeds in the grow beds). Just as our country should not rely on foreign sources of critically needed items – like medicine – so we Americans should not be totally beholden on grocery stores chains to provide for us in tough times.

My children used to mock me for my prepping efforts. Today, they are asking for advice. Truth is, prepping is an investment of time, money and effort. I spend too much time working and writing to be a good prepper, but I don’t tell them that.