We Are Seven Years Old

This is one of the few years when I’ve announced the blog’s birthday on a timely basis. I’m usually so distracted that I forget until after the fact.

Screen shot 2013-12-18 at 4.18.04 AMMany people have contributed to the success of the blog over the years. One of the things that helped early on was that people at higher traffic sites, like Felix Salmon, Mark Thoma, Tanta at Calculated Risk, Cactus at Angry Bear, and the folks at FT Alphaville took interest in us. We’ve also been fortunate to have great writers and contributors over the years, see the Bloggers tab for details. Of them, Ed Harrison and George Washington were particularly generous while we were working on ECONNED; in more recent years, Matt Stoller, Dave Dayen, Richard Smith, Philip Pilkington, and of course Lambert have been mainstays.

But some critical collaborators have been correspondents, like Entirely Random (who put us on to Magnetar), MBS Guy, Adam Levitin, Tom Ferguson, Marshall Auerback, Scott Frew (who sends us more investment research than we can read), and numerous attorneys in the foreclosure space, with Bubba Grimsley and Nick Wooten first putting us onto that issue before it was hot, and later important experts including April Charney, Max Gardner, Abigail Field, Matt Weidner, Tom Cox, Lisa Epstein, and Michael Olenick.

We’ve also been fortunate to have been able to contribute in a small way to promoting Modern Monetary Theory and are pleased to see the writers associated with UMKC, including Randy Wray, Stephanie Kelton, Scott Fullweiler, Bill Black, Michael Hudson, Dan Kervick, Michael Hoexter, Devin Smith, Joe Firestone, and Rob Parenteau make serious inroads on mainstream economics. And more recently, we’ve also had whistleblowers give us important accounts, such as the nine who came forward early in late 2012 and early 2013 to tell us of widespread abuses at Bank of American and PNC of the supposed “independent” foreclosure reviews mandated in an OCC settlement. We also have many people who send us helpful links; regular readers see that furzy mouse, Carol B, Chuck L, Deontos, Robert M, and John L are among our mainstays. I’m sure I’ve missed some important names, so please don’t take offense at an early AM oversight!

We want to extend particular thanks to the NC commentariat. When I started this blog, I had wanted to have an active and high caliber comments section. I have no idea how that came to pass but I’ve very pleased to have such engaged and thoughtful readers. It makes a huge difference in keeping a blog that never sleeps like this one going to have an interested audience and get feedback (even when it’s less positive than I’d hoped!).

I’m hoping in the upcoming year to get out and about more. Lambert will be coming through NYC on his way overseas, so we will have a meetup in Manhattan Wednesday January 8 for drinks, details to be determined (anyone who can suggest a suitable venue, ideally readily accessible by subway, please speak up in comments). I’ve been asked to speak in Atlanta and have yet to firm up dates, but that will probably be before March, and I’ll alert readers and see if we can arrange a session there. I’m also looking to go to San Francisco much later (closer to Memorial Day) and the UK, and if that pans out, I hope to meet or catch up with some of you in person.

Cheers, and wishing you all a fun holiday season and all the best for 2014!

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52 comments

  1. gonzomarx

    Happy Birthday and thank you for shining a light into areas that prefer to stay in the shadows.
    Let us know when you’re in the UK so readers could organise a meet for a few drinks if possible.

  2. bob goodwin

    Happy Birthday. Thanks for what you do. It looks like a lot of work, but you are changing the world.

  3. Foy

    Happy Anniversary Yves and NC collaborators and thanks for my daily fix of links reading for all these years. There’s definitely no sign of a 7 year itch, looking forward to many more! (Still don’t know how you get through the volume of work that you do without passing out, it’s got me beat, most impressive).

  4. William C

    Many congratulations. You do great work here. I read you pretty much every day for your intelligent commentary.

  5. middle seaman

    NC stands out as an exceptional success story. Several unique traits are crucial. Despite a strong leadership, Yves, many contributors add quality, different perspectives and writing styles. NC excels in financial post, but contributes substantially to political writing. Last, and import, the comment section is great.

  6. Ned Ludd

    I used to be a regular reader of Calculated Risk, which is likely how I found out about Naked Capitalism. I used to read a lot of liberal blogs like FDL as well, but right now, this is the only site I still read regularly.

    A lot of the liberal blogs began to feel a bit soulless when the main writers quit interacting with the commentariat. Going to a blog where the comments are left unattended is a bit like showing up at a party and finding out the hosts have left for another party. Most people leave, other people just trash the place. Seeing you and Lambert regularly engage with NC readers makes the comments feel like they are worth checking out.

    Congratulations on the seven-year anniversary! Thanks for all the great posts and for all the work you and Lambert do to keep this site running.

  7. The Dork of Cork

    6 or 7 years into this part of the crisis (longer then the second world war) and the priesthood still has control of economic language.
    Quite incredible
    They can even break laws of energy conversion as if they have come from a different universe or something
    Most people still remain ill informed as their agrarian commonsense has been distorted within a urban vaccum of various economic agents with skin in the game of entropy.

    It looks like another failure of human sheep – the collies & their owners win again.
    It will continue until it cannot.

  8. larry

    Yves,
    You neglected to mention Bill Mitchell who is one of the founding developers of MMT. He may be the one who gave the theory its name. By the way, MMT is a theory with an accompanying research program, not a model (in the logician’s sense, which forestalls certain inevitable confusions).

    1. Yves Smith Post author

      I mentioned people who have contributed to the blog. The one mentioned are people I’ve corresponded with and have cross posted. I don’t a relationship with Mitchell. I’m citing people who’ve contributed to this blog, not to MMT.

      And Mitchell was not the sole “inventor” of MMT. It has antecedents in chartalism and the work of Hyman Minsky, and of the writers now involved in MMT, the ones who have the best claim on the current incarnation are along with Mitchell, Randy Wray and Warren Mosler:

      http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2012/01/history-of-modern-monetary-theory.html

  9. mundanomaniac

    since the days following the Lehman-event I’m dropping in on my dayly round trip. It’s been a long journey through thougtfull analysis and the mysteries of spirited american english. The commentariat ist priceless. I can divide my life, referring to NC, in before and since.
    NC’s birthday ist to me as mundaneastrologer a miracle by intuition, because December 18th every year is the day, where the sun meets on 27° Sagittarius Venus of the Element fire, since the Kings Coniunction of 1603 the most lucid place in the zoodiac for humans as collecting beings.
    Congratulations

  10. Tom Stone

    Yves, thanks for all the hard work. This has been my first stop in the morning since Tanta pointed me in your direction. Happy Birthday!

  11. peace

    Happy Birthday!
    Thank You so much for this forum for truth (and hope?)
    (btw, love that the new heading speaks truth to power)
    Hope to see you 1/8 if I’m not traveling.
    Cheers

  12. vlade

    Happy b-day! I genuinely believe NC made a(n above average) difference to the world, which lots of people aim to achieve but few do.

  13. Bill the Psychologist

    Thank you Yves for your truly tireless devotion to this blog. I’ve been reading the whole time, you are part of my homepages. Though I don’t have the economic/finance education or mind to understand much of what is written here, nevertheless you have contributed heavily to my education.
    Happy Holidays !

  14. Carla

    Warmest congratuations, Yves, as well as my sincere gratitude. I really don’t know how I made it through the day without Naked Capitalism, and hope not to have to do so again.

  15. Dan

    Congratulations, and I’d echo the thanks to you and all those you’ve mentioned who’ve kept this place running. Can’t believe it’s been seven years.

    I’ve commented here exactly once, I believe, and it wasn’t particularly intelligent (more an outburst of frustration at some of the insanity you highlight so well). So I make no claims to contributing anything other than my eyeballs, but I do that regularly and have been for seven years now and I plan to continue.

  16. Wendy

    Happy birthday, congrats, and thanks for existing!
    Been meaning to make my household’s contribution here as part of our end-of-year giving, so now this gets me off my duff to do it today, as a birthday gift. Cheers.

  17. diptherio

    Happy Birthday! From myself and Mr. Yankovic


    Well, it’s time to celebrate your birthday, it happens every year
    We’ll eat a lot of broccoli and drink a lot of beer
    You should be good and happy that there’s something you can eat
    A million people every day are starving in the street

    Your daddy’s in the gutter with the wretched and the poor
    Your mama’s in the kitchen with a can of Cycle Four
    There’s garbage in the water
    There’s poison in the sky
    I guess it won’t be long before we’re all gonna die

    Happy birthday!
    Happy birthday to you!

  18. Dr Duh

    Loyal reader for close to seven years, oddly enough I found the site after Krugman mentioned it in his conscience of a liberal.

    I don’t always agree with you but I deeply appreciate your honesty, intellectual rigor, wit and humanity. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you’re one of my heroes.

  19. JustAnObserver

    Hi Yves,

    Happy Birthday NC and all those who sail in/on/around it.

    Just one question that’s puzzled me for a while: In the Archives section of the old website there was an entry for 2001 (December IIRC). What happened back then ?

    1. JustAnObserver

      Should have added: Its nice to hear you might be making it out to the left coast sometime next year.

  20. JohnB

    Learned so much in the couple of years since I found this blog, and the information/sites sourced through it. Happy birthday! Easily one of the best hubs for educational information on economics that I know of.

  21. James Housel

    Besides the wonderful posts I am always heartened by the comment threads. Civilized, thoughtful, considered. In an age of snark and ad hominem “argument” it is a remarkable community. I read you every day! Happy Birthday!

  22. Peter Pan

    I came to read this blog in late December 2006 on the recommendation of someone in a bond trading room on internet relay chat. I’ve been reading ever since that time.

    Happy Birthday !!

  23. Vatch

    Happy birthday! Every now and then, I try to encourage family and friends to read Naked Capitalism by sending them the Links URL with a description of an especially cute Antidote du jour. One person has told me that he occasionally does look at some articles after viewing the the Antidote. Sometimes it pays to be a little bit sneaky!

  24. Waking Up

    Thank you Yves and to all those who contributed and continue to contribute to the success of Naked Capitalism over the past seven years. I visit this blog daily, not only because it is a great resource into the financial world, but, also because of the obvious heart and soul of the people contributing to it. This is also one of the few blogs which speaks the truth about the wealthy and powerful regardless of political party and has great links of interest daily. Keep up the great work!

  25. BoyofOz

    Happy Birthday Yves and contributors. Keep up the great work. Look forward to many, many more years of intelligent, forthright, and fearless commentary.
    Cheers :{ )
    P.S. Love the new design

  26. Glenn Condell

    Still the first stop each morning, nowadays often the only one. Links alone would be reason enough but the commentary is refreshingly frank and palpably independent, marrying command of the minutiae with a keen insight into the bigger picture, each informing the other and resulting in that rare thing, a rounded and grounded worldview, with an idealism rooted in a clear consideration of the facts. The quality of the comments and the willingness to engage with and even to incorporate them are icing, but the cake can stand alone. Happy Birthday, and Merry Christmas.

  27. savedbyirony

    Thanks for the daily dose of knowledge, wisdom, wit and justifiable outrage. Thanks for all the tenacious hard work put into the site. Thanks for the antidotes. Summers didn’t get in, maybe the TPP won’t sneak thru by a fast track and here’s to NC fighting the good fight for seven years and hopefully many more!

  28. psychohistorian

    Happy BD !!!!

    Thank you for the “enlightened” community and your great reporting.

    You don’t look a day over 5………grin

  29. bernard

    yes, Happy Birthday.thanks again for a wonderful blog of insight and education. thank you for all your work, your efforts to get the truth out, and the contributors, especially Lambert. i’ve learned so much.

  30. Ulysses

    Happy Birthday!! Fantastic blog! McCoy’s on 9th Ave. between 51st & 52nd. Not far from the C or E 50th St. stop. Good prices, not too many yuppies… :)

  31. John Yard

    No question this is one of the top econ/policy blogs on the web. You do very important work in clarifying the different threads of our ongoing crisis. Congratulations !

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