March 6, 2009

Nobody Left

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Atrios responds to the latest government plan to restart the credit markets via partnerships with hedge funds and private-equity firms:

They made bad bets when they at least theoretically thought they could incur losses. Now the cunning plan is to hope they make good bets even though…no chance of losses!

This is all going to end really badly.

I have some longer thoughts on this subject that I haven’t quite had the nerve to write and post yet, but the short version is this: everyone in the financial industry made bad bets over the past seven years.  So if you think the government shouldn’t work with any of these guys, it means you think the government should refuse to work with the financial industry, full stop.  That’s just not practical, though.  Even if you think they’re all idiots, we have to work with someone, and the idiots are all we have.

Now, as it happens, I don’t think they are all idiots.  But that’s the post I haven’t written yet.  Maybe later.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

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