This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 236 donors have already invested in our efforts to combat corruption and predatory conduct, particularly in the financial realm. Please join us and participate via our donation page, which shows how to give via check, credit card, debit card, or PayPal. Read about why we’re doing this fundraiser and what we’ve accomplished in the last year.
Thanks to our loyal readers for such fast and generous responses! Here we started the fundraiser at the deadest time of the week, midnight Saturday, and this has been our best first day response evah!
We’ve already well over 200 donations in less than 18 hours out of our fundraiser target of 1100 donors (the total number of donations is an approximation since I do a full count every midnight and then work off that during the day). It was particularly gratifying seeing donations come in in waves, first the Mountain/Pacific time zone types before they turned in, and then another wave at 5:00 AM my time as the Brits and Europeans started making donations.
Even more important, we blew past our first goal, which was $19,000 to provide for more technology investments in the site, better loading speed, more robust defenses, design and feature tweaks, and faster resolution of other site issues, a markedly higher level than last year due to a more hostile external environment. So good for you for helping us support unsexy but absolutely critical budget items. This is our foundation for all the content we provide.
But this is only our first goal, so if you haven’t had time to contribute yet, we hope you’ll go to our Tip Jar pronto, which show you how to give by check, debit or credit card or PayPal.
We’ve hit our target quickly, and are moving faster than at the same time last year. Lambert is off the grid right now, and he is the master of our fundraising thermometer. So we have the high class problem of having it seriously out of date relative to where we stand now. He will get it more current when he comes back on duty.
Our second goal is $19,500 for travel and meetups, and as of 10:00 AM, we already have $1,100 towards that target. We used to devote this item to conferences, and we expect at a minimum that we’ll go to the next MMT conference, which we expect to be an annual event in Kansas City. Note that we turned down the opportunity to speak at a major conference this month because it was badly timed and your humble blogger felt she couldn’t handle the prep plus the travel plus other things already scheduled.
This is consistent with my practice in recent years of turning down pretty much all conferences (as well as TV requests) . For us to keep up our regular publishing schedule, we need to provide for blog coverage by paying our writers to do more than their usual duty if I travel, go to meetups, or even do media. As one astute reader said, we are like a single mother who can’t leave our apartment without hiring a baby sitter. So we even with your generous past support, we are still so resource constrained that we aren’t getting out as much as we ought to.
As much as I joke that we run this site with 1.5 people (now up to maybe 2.3 with Jerri-Lynn, Outis, and Jules), that’s due to Lambert providing Water Cooler, and Lambert and other writers also making sure none of us keels over due to overwork. Taking the time to do what most normal journalists and business people do, get out and have face time, has been a luxury we’ve seldom been able to indulge in.
So aside from the MMT conference, which appears to becoming a new focus of intellectual and political activity, our big priority is going to more meetups, particularly in cities where we haven’t held them before.
More important, it’s clear from the reader participation in all the meetups we did this year and, and the wistful comments from reader in other cities would like meetups, readers enjoy them and regard them as very important, as shown by the fact that the NC in LA group plans to meet monthly most of the year. It’s not just that some of you would like to meet Lambert and me. Much more important, it’s an opportunity for local members of the NC community to get to know each other. We’ve found without exception that readers really enjoy these discussions, and they always go on well after the formal session time.
However, our skeletal staffing means these trips are more costly than you’d think. Even going to Washington DC on a day trip and having a few meetings (as in cabbing around a bit) is over $600 item, and a meetup means an overnight stay. And for most travel, the blog coverage cost exceeds the actual transportation/lodging expenses. So as much as we’d love to go to conferences, see readers outside NYC for meetups, and go visit a CalPERS board meeting and ask a few questions, all of those are bigger ticket items than you might imagine.
So those of you who have contributed already, thanks again for your generous support, and we look forward to those NC fans who have just found out about the fundraiser to donate through the Tip Jar to help make the site more successful.
11 comments
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Yves – Congrats on your quick start.
Ok, folks, now is the time to give ’til it hurts.
Naked Capitalism is a real treasure and supporting them is one way we can fight back against the elites who would impoverish us if they could.
It’s also one of the few places to find the truth about what’s going on in the world of finance and the political economy, such as the real finances and prospects of unicorns like Uber, or, especially, the work Yves has done to expose the illegal and unethical shenanigans of CalPERS.
So, give what you can, and then give a bit more. Your intellectual return on investment is almost infinite.
O.K.!
I’m on my way to the tip jar. In addition to the great team of Yves, Lambert, Jeri-Lynn and Outis at Naked Capitalism, this one’s for our wonderful Cleveland Indians!
I would have come out to the meet up in KC — live about 3 minutes away. But we have a toddler and my time has not been our own for a while. Next time you visit, I’ll try to make it and put something into the contribution cup.
Thanks for your hard work
Trendisnotdestiny
John M
Yves – I would like to volunteer myself as an attender to the Calpers board meetings in Sacramento. I am confident that I can attend these meetings, understand a substantial portion of what’s going on, and comment effectively/ask questions. I base this confidence on many hours of experience attending public meetings of the Sacramento City Council and asking questions and/or commenting, after having pre-reviewed agendas and accompanying materials. So I know the drill. I know that the CALPERS Board meetings run for 3 days and that the next one is November 15 through 17. I know that they publish the materials 10 days before the meeting.
I am an engineer, not an economist, but have followed economic blogs for about 10 years, Calculated Risk before this one. I am also a current employee nearing retirement at a California state agency.
Even though I’ve been living in Uruguay for the last year-and-a-half, I will be in Sacramento for the next several months. One of my goals for those months is to educate my coworkers about the issues you have brought up regarding Calpers, so this will dovetail very nicely with that project. (It may have been more appropriate for me to have emailed this offer to you, and I apologize if so, but I don’t have your email address.)
Thanks so much for the offer! The documents are published 10 days before the meeting, and there are other people interested in raising governance issues and can read between the lines of some of the things that CalPERS is up to, so I am sure your help would be very much appreciated. I’m sending your comment on as an e-mail to them and we can regroup closer to the board meeting date.
Excelente!!
Yves, Lambert, Jerri-Lynn, Outis,
Thank you for making every day a bit saner!
Just donated.
Yves, do consider doing TV or radio appearances once in a while. NC for the millions.
I would love to do more radio.
The TV I get invited to do for the most part is cable shows where:
1. The viewership isn’t large
2. I only get a short bit of airtime
3. It’s at best in a remote studio. The lighting in most in NYC (and I’ve been on camera in the ones that most shows use) is awful, and that matters for women, sadly, particularly ones my age. I don’t do Skype for that reason either, the production values are lousy and the clips look amateurish.
So I have to put on my TV makeup (very different than what you wear in the real world, high def camera “sees” differently than the human eye, among other things, women need to wear trash tramp levels of eyeliner to look human, and that stuff is time consuming to apply well), schelpp to a studio before the “hit time” and then do my gig. With the subject matter prep, it’s way too much of a time sink relative to what I get out of it for anything below a Bill Moyers size audience. And people who run shows for that many people do not want to hear from someone like me now that Moyers has retired.
Greetings to Yves, Lambert, Jerri-Lynn and the rest. I have just made a donation to this great site. I read it every day. My background is not finance but I have learned a lot about what really goes on through your insightful articles. Keep up the good work!
Is there any chance of a meet up in Toronto, Canada? It is about 3 hours from where I live.
Best regards
jhg
Thank you Yves et al for your wonderful work!! Just donated and want to tell you how much I appreciate your intelligent, in-depth coverage of the issues that matter most. I stumbled across Naked Capitalism years ago and it quickly became my favorite reading. I’ve learned so much from your great website. You’ve inspired me to become more politically active. Any chance you could
visit Salt Lake City sometime? It would be nice to meet other NC readers in Utah,.and fill you in on the big issues in our conservative state. Thanks again for all you do!