Bravo! Hit Third Fundraiser Target, On to the Fourth: Guest Bloggers

Thanks to the prompt responses of over 730 members of the Naked Capitalism community, we’ve met our first hurdle, our critical budget for IT support and defenses, the second supporting the comments section, and the third, funding to continue our expanded Links section, at an increasing pace. But we are still behind where we would normally be at this time in the fundraiser. Our average donation amount is down a bit. While we’re excited to see many new donors, since this is an important vote of confidence in our work, they tend to give modestly. Can regulars who have not contributed yet dig a bit deeper to help us meet our goals and keep this site humming?

As of 1 AM EST, we’ve already $135 towards our fourth target, $24,000 of funding for guest bloggers. Please give them a big round of monetary applause by going straight to the Tip Jar! Kind words in the comments section are also very much appreciated.

As long-standing readers know, over the years, we’ve been improving the caliber of writers who contribute to Naked Capitalism. We like to send our mainstays, Lambert and Nick a significant honorarium out of the fundraiser and the new writers your generous support last year enabled us to bring on board: Conor Gallagher, and KLG. We work on the old Wall Street partnership model: a thin level of assured pay, and then bonuses that reflect, on the generous side, their and the site’s performance that year. They’ve each stepped up in a very big way to shift their coverage, both the focus and the level of output, to match the stresses of the many disruptive forces affecting the environment, geopolitics, finance and the economy, and domestic affairs.

Where would you be without Lambert helping keep our collective sanity by carefully analyzing official pronouncements and media commentary? He’s continued to dog Covid, particular the official lack of interest in ventilation, watched the material aspects of the supply chain (rail safety), the environment (wildfires) lodged the occasional review (“Termination Shock”), along with political arcana (the origin of the trillion dollar coin), news you can use like taking walks and how to sleep better, and a wide range of other topic, from, the Durham Report and AI, to cats in Cyprus.

Nick has greatly expanded our international coverage, for instance on how the war on cash and bank-related biometric ID strategies are moving ahead outside the US, as well as political/economic developments in Mexico, the important election in Argentina and on banking stresses in Europe.

Conor Gallagher has new beats on political economy, geopolitics, and labor action in Turkey, Italy, Poland the ‘Stans and has also written about the role of algos in stoking inflation Readers are keen to get KLG’s insider and technical view of dubious practices in medical and biosciences research.

Even though we pay our contributors for helping fill this site’s regular schedule at a good level, writing isn’t a very well remunerated line of work. Our guest bloggers regularly turn out in-depth analysis quickly, but the fact that they can do so is a result of their considerable experience and expertise.

We’d also like to send monetary “thanks yous” to Thomas Neuburger and other writers whose work we use.

We thought we’d share some supportive reader messages. From ChrisRUEcon:

Personally thankful for:

• The ongoing data and discussion around COVID-19 – especially nasal sprays and sequelae!
• BRICS! – thanks for the thought-provoking and fog-clearing posts. I think there’s the BRICS that the world’s true left thinkers want to see and the BRICS as they really are – and while I wouldn’t call the difference between those two visions chasmic, it’s now clear that BRICS-as-they-are is not the hegemony-defeating-droid you are looking for.
• Russia v The West – brilliant coverage again here. LOVE the Doctorow blog posts. There is so much to cut away from from the West’s cheerleading, consent-manufacturing nonsense.
• Democrats en déshabillé! I really enjoy digging into the machinations of the political duopoly’s “good cop”. Loved the Kalorama article! It’s the kind of wonderful insight I’ve come to expect from #NC and it makes our family blog all the more awesome

Thanks for everything … really … words can barely express. I hope the contribution helps some.

And sporble:

A good deal of you already know that NC is a frigate of clarity in an ocean of obfuscation (and even worse stuff).

Some of you might not know it yet, but if you’re here right now, it seems you’re on your way:

to being (even) better informed
to interacting with a unique, intelligent online community
to rewarding yourself with an alternate to the “mainstream matrix”.

I just gave $100. Give what you can!

And bobwat:

Don’t know what I would do without NC. It’s my window on the world. I’ve added a hundred to my monthly contribution. Now, on to reading reading the links – and even better – the comments.

So we hope you’ll acknowledge our writers’ skills and dedication with a big, generous thank you at the Tip Jar. They are our mainstays and deserve a lavish thank you!