Believe it or not, there used to be a wide variety of regional candy bars stocking grocery store shelves. But over the last 50 years, the biggest companies have gobbled up the smaller ones to create a highly concentrated industry. How did Hershey's, Mars, and Nestle take over our shelves of sweets?
Read MoreA year ago, Hurricane Sandy revealed harrowing realities about the basic systems New Yorkers rely on every day. The reality is that private food and fuel systems everywhere are already extremely fragile, and grow more so almost by the day. At best, Sandy-like shocks cause temporary price spikes. At worst, these ruptures can trigger the sort of panic that can forever change the character of a community.And, so far, no government has even begun to study these risks.
Read MoreIn New York City, locating a bite to eat is rarely a difficult task. The city is a food paradise or, depending on your mood, a place of overwhelming glut. But when Superstorm Sandy pummeled New York last fall, it revealed the terrifying potential for sudden food shortages.Disturbingly, city officials have little concrete data on how reliant their food system is on the private food distribution industry, and whether society is teetering a mere "nine meals away from revolution" (an ominous old expression that appeared in The Atlantic all the way back in 1945). Worse yet, they have little understanding of the logistical changes that have revolutionized how companies warehouse and distribute the food on which New Yorkers depend.
Read MoreIn July, the public learned that Goldman Sachs and several other large banks have morphed into giant merchants of physical goods, routinely shipping oil, running power plants, and amassing stocks of metals so large that Coca Cola accused them of hoarding. It was a disconcerting moment, as regulators realized that firms so recently known for their explosive mortgage-backed securities also deal in goods that can literally explode.But that was only half the story.
Read MoreToday, most chicken farmers are growing their animals on contract for huge meatpackers, a system that some farmers call "worse than sharecropping." The Obama Administration promised to investigate how concentration in the chicken industry was negatively impacting farmers. But then, mysteriously, their investigation disappeared. What happened?
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