Nate Otto

Talks about Goldman's "round trip" trading on dark international futures markets to invent phony demand for oil. - Nate Otto

Lawrence Lessig's article saying we should be intentional about how we. apply government transparency. I don't completely buy his line about the main consequence of too much transparency is we disgust ourselves, but definitely it is important to pay attention to fighting for very efficient government transparency. - Nate Otto

Confidential contracts detailing Monsanto Co.'s business practices reveal how the world's biggest seed developer is squeezing competitors, controlling smaller seed companies and protecting its dominance over the multibillion-dollar market for genetically altered crops, an Associated Press investigation has found. - Nate Otto

As the U.S. unemployment breaches the 10 percent mark — with manufacturing sector rates even higher — policymakers and industry representatives in the Midwest are seeking strategies to keep the Rust Belt from getting even rustier. In this war for economic survival, groups in cities like Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago, as well as the million-plus-members-strong United Steelworkers Union, have turned to a model borne of another war-torn region: the Mondragón Corporation in the Basque area of Spain. - Nate Otto

Sad/depressing animation about why the 10% unemployment figure for late 2009 unemployment is inaccurately low. - Nate Otto

Make this cold-buster - Nate Otto

This is not what democracy looks like. When Americans vote, by overwhelming majorities, to place control of the executive and legislative branches in the hands of a party that has promised fundamental change, they are supposed to get that change. They are not supposed to watch as a handful of self-interested and special-interested senators prevent progress by exploiting the arcane rules of the less representative of our two legislative chambers--rules requiring that not a majority but a supermajority be attained in order even to discuss necessary reforms, and that a similar supermajority be in place to thwart a filibuster. - Nate Otto

Netanyahu announced a weak settlement semi-freeze, that isn't much of a freeze at all. US responds (Hillary Clinton) and introduces language calling for return to 1967 borders. - Nate Otto