By Henry Moon Pie
I started getting my news online twenty-five years ago in the wake of Bush v. Gore after getting tired of yelling at the TV screen. My first regular online news was the aptly named BushSucks.com, a daily link compilation that covered all of the myriad ways in which W. really did suck. That site led me to Eschaton (where Lambert hung out) and Kos’s “more and better D’s,” Scoop-powered Dailykos.com. Both digital locales offered something that BushSucks.com did not: comments.
Before long, Kos even offered users the “opportunity” to create their own content on the technically cool Scoop platform where one could get their daily dopamine dose by hitting the Rec List if you knew the DK audience well enough.
If you want to make sure Naked Capitalism’s hardware and software continues to accomodate the paces that the writers, commenters and readers put it through, now would be a good time to donate. The Tip Jar beckons.
When the Great Recession hit, my list of news sources broadened to include Calculated Risk and, through the tireless efforts of Daily Kos user bobswern to bring the sanity of Naked Capitalism to Daily Kos through his diaries that quoted Yves’s articles at length, I came to Naked Capitalism.
The shift from Daily Kos to Naked Capitalism was a gradual one, driven by a growing recognition that there was no more a way to change Daily Kos into more than a DNC mouthpiece than there was to change the DNC itself. Naked Capitalism had to win me over gradually, because there was a predominance of finance in those days, and that was not a major interest of mine.
As time went on though, I began to realize the amazing breadth and depth of what was covered in Links and the Water Cooler. It became clearer and clearer that Naked Capitalism had a reader-centered goal: nurturing a reader toward being well-informed and suitably equipped for critical thinking. While Daily Kos, on a mission from God the DNC, did its best to eliminate independent thinking and independent tiinkers from the site, Naked Capitalism demanded an increasingly rare ability to consume, digest and critique very diverse perspectives, at least among the commenters. Readers were likely to have their opinions and beliefs challenged rather than verified to the point of petrification at Daily Kos.
If you recognize how rare it is for a website to strive to have an uplifting influence on its visitors, now would be a good time to donate. The Tip Jar beckons.
When you came to Naked Capitalism each morning, you just might learn something new, and come out with your understanding of the world or even yourself altered. My list of life-changing things begins with Lambert’s writing about permaculture buttressed by members of the Commentariat with their own experience and expertise. It was an exercise of open source education that was the dream of those who saw what good the Internet might do. At Naked Capitalism, it’s just part of the standard bennies.
If you’ve learned something important at Naked Capitalism that commercial media rarely covers, now would be a good time to donate. The Tip Jar beckons.
You might also just learn something lifesaving. I was focused on the holidays and the Chief’s first trip to the Super Bowl in 50 years, but there were these unnerving stories about old men who smoked dropping dead on the street in China. Then there were the freezer trucks in Northern Italy (be careful out there, Reality Czar). Thus began NC in its lifesaving role as a truthseeker and truthteller about Covid. I changed my habits, stayed out of crowds and tight spaces, and missed the first wave here in Cleveland. I also learned the truth about the non-sterilizing nature of the vaccines here, so when the Biden administration listened to the scientists-the political scientists, that is – and declared Covid over, I knew better, and attended scores of hospital appointments wearing a KN-95, The last thing I needed was Covid, and the information I got as a Naked Capitalism reader made me safer, and put the Naked Capitalism staff at risk because it bucked government disinformation.
If you appeciate the way Naked Capitalism puts the welfare of its readers over what’s popular or crowd-pleasing, now is a good time to donate. The Tip Jar beckons.
I could go on for pages (“oh no, here he goes”) about the things I’ve learned at NC from the stories and the threads, but I’m going to close it out here.
You think it’s truly just and right that the readers of a reader-supporting site should return the favor for a reader-supported site, it’s a good time to donate to Naked Capitalism. The Tip Jar beckons.
> … after getting tired of yelling at the TV screen
LOL … totally went through this phase as well!
More for the war effort!
Things look grim but despair is banned.
Capitalism might be seeing it’s last decade.
thanks, HMP.
i dont remember how i found this place…somewhere around the GFC of 08, i think,(i dont really do Time, as it were,lol) and just kinda glommed on.
lurked for a long while, as is my wont.
my first comments may have been about organic/regenerative ag, and all the weird thangs i get up to out here on the Farm.
idk.
but y’all were there for me and Tam, when she got cancer…and all the way to the end…and that, i will never forget.(those thread are saved in the file with all my diary entries from that time, and ongoing)
i just wish i had money to send.
for those who do have a lil extra jack…put yer money where yer mouth is and hit up the tip jar.
and…one of our Aussies, i think…kept saying “Disheveled Marsupial”, of all things…and it was weird at first…but by Cancertime, when i’m wandering the hospital and streets thereabouts,it was a brainworm…my mind kept repeating it,lol.
Skippy, perhaps.
still dont know what that was all about.
In honor of you two very special people (Amfortas and HMP), I’m dropping an additional donation in the mail.
Ditto.
Solidarity from Louisiana 🥾
Fine.
Man Law compels me to come to your aid.
NC, here’s another 50$ because of ya boi AMFORTAS THE HIPPIE.
Solidarity from Louisiana, Big Dawg!
UNITING THE REAL LEFT WITH MAGA DOWN HERE IN NOLA 🤞
A question: I send in money every month via a subscription. Until this year, I’ve always tried to ensure my tips was included in the various totals and eligible for any available match by cancelling my old one and entering a new one.
But this year Yves said they counted subscriptions only as they arrived every month, because I could cancel any time (true, but I never have). So I just left the old subscription in place.
The question is: does that work for the contribution totals and matches? If not, can I fix it? (Other than by changing to a one-time contribution, which would necessarily be a fraction of my annual subscription.) I ask because the annual total of my monthly donations to my church is included in the statistics as soon as I sign a pledge card …. even though the pledge isn’t binding.
PS I came to Naked Capitalism in, I think, 2007 from Calculated Risk as well. Specifically because of Tanta’s excellent columns on mortgage origination and servicing. I still miss her (and, yes, I have the sweatshirt. Two of them).
I don’t recall now what first brought me here, but I keep returning, and now donating, because I want it to keep on keeping on. Like each of us individually, there will come a time when it won’t – but till then, bop till you drop. The check will be in the mail.
I discovered NC in late 2008. Yves Smith was the first person I knew of to blow the whistle on what a fraud Obama was. She saw through him the minute he appointed Timothy Geithner to the Treasury. I had just voted for Obama so I felt really stupid but, after the shame wore off, I also felt indebted to YS and this site. Yves has pretty much steered me straight ever since — the Great Recession ( I read the fascinating Econned ), Russiagate, Hilary, the Ukraine scam, Israel, etc. I am now retired with no pension and living off my savings but I send NC my pittance every month. It’s the least I can do. If I had any doubts about this site, the quality of the commentariat would put them to rest. You guys are way over my head so I admire quietly from a distance but reading all of you is a big part of the appeal.
“I discovered NC in late 2008. Yves Smith was the first person I knew of to blow the whistle on what a fraud Obama was. She saw through him the minute he appointed Timothy Geithner to the Treasury. I had just voted for Obama so I felt really stupid…”
Ditto. I even took seriously and tried to participate in the mortgage modification process until Chase Bank attempted quite fraudulently to foreclose on my home. Thankfully then congressman Pete Stark intervened upon my request and things ended well for me, although it did not go nearly so well for millions of other American households.
I recall a phrase used back then by Yves describing the Democrats as only “marginally less dreadful” than the Rethugicans. It’s stuck with me ever since. And marginally less dreadful just don’t cut it as something worth supporting.
The modern day equivalent is yelling at a mobile device screen at AI hallucinations.
“… through the tireless efforts of Daily Kos user bobswern to bring the sanity of Naked Capitalism to Daily Kos through his diaries that quoted Yves’s articles at length, I came to Naked Capitalism.”
I too came to NC from DK because of reading bobswern’s posts on the latter site. I started doing as he did, frequently posting quotes and links from NC to DK. Although I was very well received by much of the rank and file at DK, I did finally get banned there when, inspired by the enlightening content at NC, I began being trenchantly critical of the Democrat party elites and their policies.
Balloon-juice.com for me.
I did find them via Daily Kos which i discovered by reading James Carvilles books where he mentions the GREAT ORANGE SATAN WEBSITE.
Can’t believe I read so many Carville books 🤦♂️