Thanks to the generosity of many loyal readers, we’ve beaten our goal of having 1000 donors participate in our fundraiser. We are now at 1044 and have raised our target to 1100. We are still short by $8,510 of our goal of $16,000 for more original reporting. Let’s see if we can meet both targets in this final day of our fundraiser!
Members of the Naked Capitalism community have been particularly generous in the last two days, with both the number of donors and amount given each of the last two days exceeding the previous day. So if we have another strong day today, we have a good shot at meeting these final targets, which will enable us to make real improvements in our content and in how we run the site over the next 12 months.
Stephanie Kelton at the University of Missouri-Kansas City sent us a note supporting our efforts. As most of you know, Stephanie is one of a handful of economists behind Modern Monetary Theory, which describes how monetary operations work in a fiat currency regime like the dollar in the post Bretton Woods era. The efforts of Stephanie and her colleagues, including Randy Wray, Warren Mosler, Bill Black, Pavlina Tcherneva, and Scott Fullweiler, show how a small group can have a large impact on policy debates and thinking. Even though MMT remains controversial among economists, it has gotten more traction than many heterodox economic theories that have similarly solid empirical foundations. Their efforts demonstrate how the Internet can serve as a tool for for transmitting ideas and showing how many of the claims made by elites about why they can’t help the middle class and poor are based on outmoded ideas or more likely, raw self interest, with morality disguised as economics as their cover.
As Stephanie wrote,
Today is the final day of fundraising here at Naked Capitalism. Like many of you, I hadn’t taken the time to give until today. (I do everything on deadline.) As regular readers, we know what an invaluable resource this place is. Maybe we visit the site looking for that OMG story we know we won’t find anywhere else – I’m thinking AIG Bailout Bombshell – or maybe we’re looking for a deeper, more critical angle on a story that’s already made headlines. Either way, we want something that isn’t readily available through conventional news outlets. We find it here because of the remarkably talented and exceptionally dedicated team of individuals who keep this site grinding day and night.
Yves has been a pioneer, recognizing early on that there was a burgeoning appetite for alternatives to the sanitized, administration-friendly puff pieces so readily available in the progressive blogosphere. Naked Capitalism features no cheerleaders for any party, only champions of justice. Producing the stories that expose injustice means unearthing evidence, and tracking down facts and details takes time and money.
And that’s where we come in. We’re locked in a struggle against a corrupt and powerful elite that understands, deep down, how tenuous its assault on democracy really is. As supporters of Naked Capitalism, we become active participants in the struggle. Please join me in thanking Yves and her incredible team by giving what you can. We’re all in this together.
And as reader VE told us yesterday,
Well, finally got to donate. I know we don’t always agree on stuff, but, maybe paradoxically this is why I value NC tremendously – and why I believe NC is very important. You try very hard, and get much further than just about anyone I know, to search for the underlying truth, regardless of whether it’s unpleasant to right – or left (the fact that most truths appear to be more unpleasant to right is of little surprise, but any ideology, left inclusive, has its blinkers that need periodic lifting).
Why I believe it’s important is because lots of “natural” right supporters between the better well off don’t consider the world outside of their experience, and any ideological attack they see as ideological. So argument that borrowers were just bad as opposed to lenders ignoring the law doesn’t even come into their worldview, as they (in general) follow the law and assume everyone does (and when they see it’s false, they assume it’s exception to what they were told, not the rule). You mercilessly expose this, and the fact that you equally mercilessly expose stuff like Occupy Debt Jubilee folly (taking heat from left for that) provides you with the trustworthiness that more ideological blogs simply lack.
I wish there was more people like you – not just in the attempts to evade the blinkers, there’s a few of those, but more importantly willing to spend inordinate amounts of time that the fight with humanity’s base case of bias and stupidity.
As someone said, that you can’t win a fight with stupidity doesn’t mean you should stop fighting, as then you’ll lose for sure.
So all the best and good luck…
I’m deeply grateful for how many of you have supported us over the years in the various ways you can.
Today is the last chance for this 2014 fundraiser. There are multiple ways to give. The first is here on the blog, the Tip Jar, which takes you to PayPal. There you can use a debit card, a credit card or a PayPal account (the charge will be in the name of Aurora Advisors).
You can also send a check (or multiple post dated checks) in the name of Aurora Advisors Incorporated to
Aurora Advisors Incorporated
903 Park Avenue, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10075
Please also send an e-mail to yves@nakedcapitalism.com with the headline “Check is in the mail” (and just the $ en route in the message) to have your contribution included in the total number of donations.
So give now to Naked Capitalism. If you can’t afford much, give what you can. If you can afford more, give more. If you can give a lot, give a lot. This isn’t just giving, it’s a statement that you are want a different debate, a different society, and a different culture. It’s time to join us as we make sure this site can do an even better job of debunking the lies that prop up a diseased power structure and promoting a more just social order.
4 comments
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there’s so much money coming in through this year’s fundraiser that hopefully you can take $30,000 or $40,000 of it and buy some waaay out of the money puts and get lucky at 10 or 20 to 1. That would be $300,000 or $800,000 to play around with. That’s almost MMT-style free money! I bet you could find something to do with that amount of money, but be sure to keep some on the side for another 10 bagger — just in case you run through what’s left on writers and tech issues..
All the macro doom & gloom that gets posted here might finally pay off ! You never know.
I’m tempted, myself, but I’m kind of chicken given all the money I’ve lost going short. But I’m not a pro. Obviously, hahahahaha.
I’m not sure there is much of a fence between our “agent” of the Treasury, aka The Fed, doing controlled QE, and MMT – except of course that we have private banksters howling at the moon. MMT is just the common-sense acceptance of social spending priorities. Ebola anyone? I think the reason this QE infusion has gone to the top oligarchs is twofold at least: the Fed wants US corporations to shore up their shares so any run will not destroy them; and equally the Fed wants to insure there is enough liquidity to keep the old system greased until new structures can be institutionalized. No easy task. Just observe how awful Obamacare’s debut has been. Being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century is wrenching. And we will only understand the reasons, the balance of the facts, if we read and try to understand.
I am donating, even though I am severely underemployed. If one o’ yews could do Yves and Lambert a favor and donate a “pass it fwd” thing, I would appreciate it a lot, my donation is so small it’s pitiful.
But I needed to do that, more as a statement then a useful contribution. I have been reading NC for a while, but only in the last year have I fully begun to understand the importance and depth it brings (now) twice a day.
Hope it goes on, we need it.
I too am underemployed, working pt and on SS early retirement. I was going to donate anyway (did a little last year). There is a PayPal problem though: they want confirmation of less than $1 activity in checking account. The checking account shows some activity with them, but no amount is given, just “$0.00.” So unable to confirm in order to use PayPal. BTW, using the keyboard “less than” sign here closed bottom comment area below post comment button, some kind of markup language thingy. I was able to use a debit card last time.