Wowsers, we have been so busy that we managed to miss commemorating the anniversary of this website, which launched on December 18, 2006.
There are so many people who have been important to the success of this site over the years that I am a bit fearful of attempting a list, out of the risk of missing critically important figures. Ed Wright pressed us to start this site. Mark Thoma gave encouraging words early on and advised persevering despite predictably low traffic early on (fewer than 100 views a day), saying he’d gone through that phase. Felix Salmon gave us a boost by having us guest blog at Slate while he was on vacation, and Paul Krugman also commented on our work approvingly and linked to us (this before him having his head turned in a bad way by the Obama Administration). The writers at FT Alphaville and Cactus at Angry Bear were also very helpful.The pre-crisis and crisis econoblogpshere was vibrant, with writers like Nouriel Roubini, Brad Setser, Richard Bookstaber, Marc Chandler, Tanta and Calculated Risk, Barry Ritholtz, and Steve Waldman all trying to make sense of what was happening.
Richard Smith, Andrew Dittmer, Ed Harrison, Tom Adams, and Tom Ferguson all played critically important roles when I was writing ECONNED, either with the book proper or with the site, and most continue to be important advisors. Marshall Auerback and Rob Parenteau were also early contributors. Matt Stoller provided early intelligence and commentary on policy matters, as did David Dayen.
We worked with legal experts on foreclosure fraud and servicing abuses, including Adam Levitin, Bubba Grimsley, Nick Wooten, April Charney, Max Gardner, Abigail Field, Matt Weidner, Tom Cox, as well as activists like Lisa Epstein and Michael Olenick. Newer writers and contributors include Clive, Philip Pilkington, Nathan Tankus, Michael Crimmins, Mathew D. Rose, Igancio Portes, Tom Ferguson, and John Siman. Michael Hudson, Bill Black, and Mark Ames graciously give us some of their original pieces to publish jointly with their sites. More recently, we have gotten considerable help on private equity from insiders who need to stay anonymous, as did our earlier sources on collateralized debt obligations, Entirely Random and CDO Trader.
We are also grateful to CalPERS for being an unending source of material on how investors are intellectually captured by private equity fund managers, and on institutional decline. We very much appreciate the considerable input of a growing number of CalPERS employees who share our distress with how the giant fund is being run and are as keen as we are to see it improve.
Special thanks to readers who send us links and antidotes. Regulars include Kevin W, UserFriendly, furzy mouse, resilc, David L, Chuck L, EM, martha r, margarita, RR, YY, 1 SK, Deontos, Robert M, Bill B, bob (who also helped us rescue Gabriel when he got stuck behind our huge bookcase), Dan Kloke, E. Mayer, Carla R, and John L. And last but not least the established members of the commentariat, such as PlutoniumKun, vlade (our longest continuing commenter) Oregoncharles, The Rev Kev, JTMcPhee, ChiGal in Carolina, diptherio, MyLessThanPrimeBeef, RUKidding, ambrit, flora, David in Santa Cruz, drumlin woodchuckles, Jeremy Grimm, Wukchumni, and washanute. Don’t feel neglected if you were not singled out! There are too many esteemed members of the commentariat to begin to give an adequate listing. Finally, a big salute to Arizona Slim and Katy in Minnesota, who have been organizing reader meetups.
And give a big round of applause to Jules Dickson and now also crittermom, who are doing heavy lifting by moderating comments on a scheduled basis. And of course, Lambert and Jerri-Lynn, who are mainstays of this site and make knocking off insightful and often witty commentary on a regular basis seem effortless, when it most certainly isn’t.
Last but not least: we depend on the contributions of our loyal donors. We would not be able to produce this site at its current level of output and quality without your help. So a big BIG thanks for your generosity and vote of confidence in our work.
And on to more troublemaking in 2019!
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Happy Birthday. NakedCapitalism is my first stop when I hit the net in the morning. Always provides informative perspectives.
Likewise. I’m a newcomer NC and was so relieved to find I wasn’t alone! Happy Birthday!
Happy birthday NC! And a belated Seasons Greetings to one and all.
Many thanks, PK.
I hope you are enjoying the festive break. Happy new year.
BTW bienvenu a la francophonie :-).
Merci, colonel, bonne année!
Many happy returns, NC. As with Tom on the beach, NC is my first and last online stop in the morning and evening and, as with PK, not ideal for my productivity :-). Joyeux anniversaire. La lutte continue grace a cette communaute.
On another note, one hopes the London / British Isles based community could meet in the new year. A couple of us do from time to time. I would be delighted to meet the Parisians, too, as I visit regularly.
Agree wholeheartedly, Colonel. Would the Leeds environs suit you? It would be good to meet up with like minded folks. And to you and PK, une très bonne année à toi.
Thank you, Larry.
I venture north from time to time, usually for the races, and will let you know in good time.
If you are in London or Buckinghamshire, please let me know.
Bonne annee.
Remember the dead …. I killed a few … had it coming.
That icky lawyer type from Minnesota peddling wonky MBS was a treat, good thing I’m so far away. Blast who is the gal again that tried to obfuscate about the same and had a dreadful P&L in court.
Personally I think the blog should have a wall of the dead and why they got it ….
Happy birthday NC!!!
Hope the best for you and the “NC community” in following years!!!
Yay yay yay!!!
Congratulations! Many happy returns of the day.
An incredible feat. Your predecessors were Cursor’s Media Patrol, Jorn Barger’s Robot Wisdom and very few others. Ten years in the Blogosphere is like two lifetimes in the real world.
Hearty congratulations for twelve years of thoughtful articles and opinions. I can only guess at the massive amount of work that goes into keeping NC going but this site stands as a pillar to “fearless commentary on finance, economics, politics and power”. When you stand in opposition to such institutions as the main stream media and the official narrative, you know that you are doing something right.
You’re the first thing I look at every morning, and I check back several times a day. I feel so much better informed than those around me that it’s a little isolating. But understanding feels so much better than ignorance. Thanks for an amazing job.
Ditto that. Though I cannot claim to understand fully, still I am less ignorant.
And a thousand thanks!
Congratulations on your perseverance and stick-to-it-ness, in hunting down escaped goats of the past and present. It’s an unearthly time to be around mining for information, as the veins are rich with color.
Happy B-Day NC, many more and better to ya!
When I first found this site, however long ago it was, I was still a recovering free-marketeer. I’d been spoon-fed the stuff in NYU’s graduate business program (now the Stern School) in the early ’80s. Thirty years later, reading ECONNNED opened my eyes, and they’ve stayed open thanks in large part to reading here every morning. This is the window through which I found Bill Black, Michael Hudson, Karl Polanyi, Glenn Greewald, and so many more. My everlasting thanks!
This is a gracious thank you of yours, Yves.
And yes thanks to Ed Wright and Mark Thoma! You must have mentioned their early role before, but as the years go by I guess I’ve forgotten. And I came to this site from a link at Calculated Risk, so glad you mentioned them. Merry Christmas!
Thanks for the awesome work you do keeping your readers aware of and informed about the forces shaping finance and economics. Looking forward to more insight from NC in 2029
Thank you Yves & Team !
I have learned so much from you since finding you early early in ’07 which, without you, I would not have learned about the insane infinite derivative world we live in, what a whore Clinton is to have signed the horrific Commodities Futures & Modernization Act – and the other bullshit him & his wife pulled re: banking, discovering warriors like Brooksley Born & fearless reporters like David Sirota & others I never would have heard of.
Thank you for also calling out Obama far, far earlier than anyone did.
One day I hope this is viral on MSM so kids really know who and what he really is:
#TrumpIsObamaLegacy
Just for correction, but the CFMA is generally useless in financialization history. The real commodity futures act was granted in 1992 by regulators. The 2000 act was just for paper work purposes.
Congrats and keep up the good work! This site has become, IMO, the top curated feed of news + topical analysis today and for some years now. My appreciation and gratitude goes out to all!
I’ve been a daily reader of NC for over 11 and 1/2 years of the 12 and consider myself lucky to have been able to do so. It’s a piece of daily sanity in what seem like an insane world.
Thanks for everything to all that have helped keep this site and the high-quality information flowing.
I think I’ve been here half the time.
Steve Keen introduced me — or rather, urged me to get in touch with Yves who took me out to a wonderful Japanese sake bar. I’ve been here ever since as my major site along with my own blog.
It’s my “wake up transition” in the morning, and I love the commentariat as well as the usual contributors.
Thank you, Yves, for all you’ve done and continue to do.
Happy Anniversary NC!
I’ve been a regular reader for only @4 years & occasional reader for about 6.
I was steered here from Barry Ritholtz’ site.
It would be interesting to know how others came to know about NC.
Curiously enough, I was clued in to Naked Capitalism by Paul Krugman’s Op-Ed site in the NYT. (Alas, since the Paywall went up, I no longer haunt the NYT.)
A Happy New Year to one and all.
Stumbled in from a link in Gawker (RIP) 6 months before the 2016 presidential elections and daily ever since…
I just stumbled in from the rain in 2009. I didn’t understand a thing. I didn’t know what neoliberalism was; I didn’t know what monetary theory was; I didn’t know what MMT was (I asked “What the hell is MMT?” and they answered me immediately with a clear and astonishing explanation.) I had been a lifelong sympathizer with socialist causes but I didn’t think capitalism (good old-fashioned cappies) was necessarily a bad thing. And I had read lotsa history of the 20th C. because I just wanted to understand my time on this planet. I had even tried reading a few finance books but kept falling asleep. The minute I read the first paragraph of one of Yves’ posts I was hooked. And have been ever since. I can’t imagine what fog I would have endured if I hadn’t found NC. Happy Birthday, and many more.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARDS!!!
LONG LIVE THE WORKING CLASS!
Congratulations! NC is the prime site that I use every morning. I have recommended it to so many others that I’ve lost count. Please keep up the good work.
Also, many thanks to all the NC contributors. They are far and away the best-informed and most articulate on an internet that invites skepticism with every click.
Happy Anniversary! Appreciate Naked Capatalism. I come to this site as a clear window into what is happening in the world. To contribute to answering how I came to this site…my spouse sent me a link that was featured in NC awhile ago. Now, I am happily captured as a loyal follower. It’s great fun to read the astute and informed comments . Thanks dear for one more great share of your enlightened world view.
Yves, you are truly The Mouse that Roared. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for persevering with this enterprise. I stumbled here looking for thoughtful and honest reporting about the Global Financial Crisis, probably through David Dayen or Mark Ames — and found a community whose life experiences have taught them, each in her or his own way, that there is such a thing as an objective reality, and that understanding it matters. As Justice Brandeis taught us:
Keep the lights on!
Woop woop.
I stumbled over this site by accident in, I think, 2008 – the day the potd was of two little girls apparently trying to lure a (brown?) bear into a bird-cage, (never forgotten my guffaw at that – I hope it was doctored!) – and (being now retired) have since spent at least two hours a day, often far more, here.
Mind you your tales of greed, incompetence at high levels and often impending doom can be disturbing and/or infuriating and I rarely leave the site without giving heart-felt thanks that I’m not American and live about as far from the USA as it’s possible to get, but echoing Susan the Other above, I’ve learned a vast amount here – as much from the commentators as from the articles – and regard myself as far better informed on what is going on in the world than any of my contemporaries.
Congratulations and many thanks on the all around supremely superb job. Keep the big hits coming.
The ongoing saga(s) at CalPers, in particular.
Many Happy Returns, NC! 18 December 2006 eh? As a longtime astrology fancier I simply had to click on my software to bring up a chart for that date – to discover what type of astro-atmosphere prevailed.
(Please don tin foil hat or simply move along to the next comment if you have no time for such pastimes as proper astrology).
Atmosphere prevailing at 12 noon on 18 Dec. 2006 was very, very Sagittarian: Sun, Pluto, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and quite possibly Moon were all in sign of The Archer, Sagittarius. That was quite an unusual astro line-up!
Sagittarius, a dynamic Fire sign ruled by Jupiter, is said to relate, among other things, to matters philosophical, expansion, optimism, wide publication, exaggeration, a tendency towards bluntness in stating opinion. Venus, planet of the arts, was just outside that Sagittarius stellium (cluster of planets) in Earthy Capricorn. This added “feet on the ground”, common sense and business sense facets to the atmosphere, as well as a “foot on the brake” if Sagittarius were to over-extend itself, as is its wont at times. Saturn, Capricorn’s ruler was in Leo and in harmonious aspect to Sun/Pluto in Sagittarius – an echo of the Venus in Capricorn relationship.
All in all – what an excellent day on which to bring forth a website such as Naked Capitalism!
Okay, I shall return to lurking now. Y’all can take off the tin foil hats.
I did a quick Tarot reading for Naked Capitalism, a three-card spread, signifying past, present and future.
Past:
Present:
Future:
I have been a regular since seeing you on the Charlie Rose show back in the day. Itis the only good thing to come out of his show. Happy birthday and keep it up. NC is my first look in the morning. Congrats to all who take part.
I can only imagine the juggling and plate spinning that all this requires. Thanks for your ongoing contributions to my education.
A remarkably mature 12-yr-old. Precocious, you might say.
Anyway, congratulations, thanks to all involved, and a very fruitful New Year to you.
It’s interesting that NC has remained a blog, with minimal (but well done) graphics and crew. I’ve seen Yves’ explanations of the difficulties in changing the format, but I think this also keeps it a lean, mean machine: more of a cheetah than a lion. It’s easier to load because it’s mostly text, and I assume much easier to manage. We like it that way, and it’s more independent – a now-rare advantage in internet journalism. The disadvantage is the load it puts on our hosts: we appreciate you efforts all the more.
Wowsers. Congratulations and many thanks.
This desktop computer i use was set up 8/07. The first site on the header bar of favorites is NC next is local NOAA 7 day forecast. Been that way since day one hold over from last computer. Thankyou thankyou thankyou for keeping me sane all this time everyone.
Been reading for a few years, even went to two meet-ups. Don’t comment very often but do read links and comments and learn quite a bit.
I agree with all the comments above (and below). NC has set the bar for me when it comes to ‘comments sections’ in general, in fact I’m now spoiled. I also have a clear understanding about how difficult and time consuming managing a comments section is. It seems I may have learned as much from the comments section as the rest of NC because of your great standards. Also, I suspect some of the west coast people who regularly comment are getting up at 4am PST. (I’m looking at you Wukchumni! one of my kids lives in Visalia btw). I don’t comment that often but I sure appreciate those who do. Thanks to Yves and everyone Yves mentioned above. PS. I love it when people like Hudson, Auerback as well as Lambert, Jerri-Lynn and Yves comment. My favorite is when Yves takes someone to task! Thank you everybody and happy New Year!
My dad was in the stock biz on the west coast, which meant he was up early, birds getting the worm, etc.
He imparted it unto me, and as much as i’d like to sleep in till say the ungawdly hour of 8 am, that’ll never happen.
Visalia is the nicest big city in the Central Valley, notwithstanding the low bar of competition.
A belated “Happy Continuation Day!”…..So much to learn and appreciate from your website ( i.e. your essays, links, and the antidote du jour). There is always a reason to check your site first before I get the “news”. Thanks so much for curating it all for people like me.
Happy anniversary/birthday, Yves. I’m particularly grateful for the articles on CalPERS, which I forward to several friends in CA who hope to receive benefits from them someday.
Here’s to many more years to you.
I’m with the snowman on this!
Congratulations, and may NC have many many more.
I read regularly, comment less often. Thanks to all, mods, contributors, commentariat. As a working economist, I enjoy the comments on all the economics articles. Black, Hudson, and some others prove we are all not totally wacko!
For some years now NC has been my first-thing-in-the-morning news and views source. Can’t make my morning tea without it.
As a Californian, I particularly relish new CalPERS tidbits.
Looking forward to many more years of NC.
Kudos to you all.
Have come to appreciate the site more and more as time wears on; the chronicling and commentary on Brexit has been a real education. I know there aren’t that many people out there DOING IT but would love it if the international perspectives–of the kind you sometimes find in Asia Times Online–could be opened up further. Thanks
Shine on, you crazy diamond!
happy anniversary to my favorite site! i’m also someone who has learned so much from both the writers and commentariot. ive been a regular reader since almost the beginning – arrived here from the Calculated Risk blog and am so grateful for all the hard work Yves and Lambert have put into maintaining and growing this place. along with great NC articles special things happen here such as Gabriels rescue thread and super interesting link submissions. i also love the spiciness of this space … plus all the nature lovers, their contributions are a treat :)
Happy Birthday NC!
I also just discovered this site this year, and it has become my go to for a wealth of information and insight. And I appreciate the comment section much as well.
NC keeps me learning and thinking. Happy birthday!
ha ha NC’s bday should be easy enough for me to remember… the day before mine.
Thanks for all you do :-)
Twelve years – awesome! I’m going to reread Econned in honor of the occasion. Keep it up and keep ’em honest.
Wishes for many returns…I think of you all in salutation as Dear Ones. I am so
grateful to you for being there/here. You have been company for my spirit and
more you have opened doors that would have remained closed to me. I came to this site through my iconoclastic sagittarian friend’s blog exopermaculture.com.
I can’t name the year. They have passed so quickly. a thousand thank you s
Thank you all for everything! Good outcomes to you in the new year.
Yaaaaaay!!! Congratulations!!!
So, so very thankful you started this marvelous website!
Here’s to many more!