By Reslic, aka Re Silc, a Naked Capitalism reader
July 14,2014. It was the day I found Naked Capitalism and was greeted by Yves on the web site with a “Happy Bastille Day!” I was finishing out a cabin we had built on our part of an old farm in southwestern Vermont, and was surfing the net and watching a bit of Le Tour over a recuperative beer that night. I’m pretty much an addict of reading a wide range of material from welding and art, to financial news, with Middle Eastern geopolitics in between.
Wow, I was blown away by the selections that day on Naked Capitalism. A leadoff about adaptive and selective seed abortion, which reveals complex conditional decision making in plants, followed by a Chuck L-sourced link from the BBC on the future – the ultimate comeback: bringing the dead back to life. I continued on and became more and more interested, as I hit the down arrow. More great stuff… from the UK Telegraph on the worldwide debt surge; news on Gaza, Iraq; Edward Snowden condemning the UK’s emergency surveillance bill in the Guardian; a section on imperial collapse watch…now we’re talking. It was my kind of website; all ending in an antidote du jour by furzy mouse of some sleeping squirrels?????
I bookmarked the link and continued with my beer and the next day with my DIY projects. I sort of tuned out for a week, but upon my return to my retirement gig at UNC Chapel Hill, and sitting in an endless, boring, dean-led meeting about nothing of substance, I opened my laptop and my cursor gravitated to the saved Naked Capitalism link. I have no idea what happened in the rest of the meeting but thank God it was large enough for me to hide in the back and become addicted to the best website with commentary and links on the most important subjects on this planet. Whether you got hooked quickly like me, or gradually came to appreciate the unique perspective Naked Capitalism offers, be sure to chip in at the Tip Jar! Every contribution, from $5 to $5,000, helps keep this site lively and relevant.
Since that time late in July 2014, I have enjoyed being part of the Naked Capitalism community, one where the group continues to focus, dig down and understand the who, what, where on our global challenges, across a wide range of topics and which Naked Capitalism shows are linked up in some manner. Not that it has all the answers, but it gives one the power of reality to generate some damn good questions on a whole bunch of complex topics. Where else will you find how rainfall in rural Syria affects immigration in Germany and trade with USA USA.
I have not met other Naked Capitalism aficionados in person, but I picture them as smart, opinionated, but open to discussion, having a good amount of empathy and on a life-long learning path. Naked Capitalism is a crucial link for me to fulfill that same flow and goal. I have spent countless hours surfing around the web in search of stories of interest, stories I can learn from, stories that have personal utility to me, or that I can send to friends. Nowhere can you find the breadth of information on the topics that have, are, and will affect you and yours more than on Naked Capitalism. We’re all busy, we’re all pressed for time and attention. To be an informed citizen, a fully functioning human on this planet, there is no better source of informational sustenance than Naked Capitalism. Where else can you can eat and drink from the smorgasbord of stories that are dished up twice daily by the Naked Capitalism crew. Your one-stop URL that examines statements and ideas from many sources, so you can better generate your own thoughts on the matter at hand. So please, donate now! The Tip Jar tells you how.
I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bahrain and then became a CPA and U.S. Foreign Service Officer. When you spend a lot of time overseas, you become part of a small community and you observe lots of different communities from many other cultures. You realize that successful communities, ones that prosper and grow, ones that can learn, adapt, and address issues in the most efficient and effective manner, have everybody involved and invested in that community. You cannot be a slacker, you cannot be a free rider if the group, and ultimately you personally, are to prosper.
The same situation exists for the Naked Capitalism community. If you value the reading experience and information you get from the best damn website on the planet, then step up now. Show your appreciation. Show how you value all the hard work in putting this food for your mind on the table day after day. So time for you to invest. Especially if you are doing well these days. Give whatever you can, whether it’s $5, $50, or $5000, via our Tip Jar. Even a small donation helps. And you can also contribute by encouraging people you know and meet to check out Naked Capitalism. Some will be hooked the way I was.
That’s my spiel for Y-O-U supporting Naked Capitalism. I went to the same junior college as Burt Reynolds and Lt. William Calley, so please excuse my above rambling prose, and go right now to the Tip Jar to send a few Jerome Powell bucks, Euros, Pounds, Dinars, Renminbi, or pieces of eight to Naked Capitalism today.
19 comments
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Got paid yesterday, going to the jar right now! Can’t do as much as previous years but I will do what I can….
Thank you for your contribution (both the article today and your time in the peace corps)
I wish we could see some more biographies of regulars as well – very interesting
Also many thanks to Re Silc, the author of the post. Your contributions don’t go unnoticed! I swear some days it has seemed like you supply a full 25% of the curated links!
…finally finished with chores and assembling the “check in the mail” right now!
Will send email confirmation separately. Thanks NC team.
I got caught up in the week last week, and I had posted a question to Lambert about funding for Water Cooler– the snail mail address. I was looking at a few bucks for each, but if he replied it was buried by new material.
God’s know that I probably should be fined for my transgressions and questionable comments, especially when it comes to posting actual recipes for long pig… I hope to defray the costs of my misbehaviour, in lieu of an actual, sincere apology, though I do sincerely appreciate the output, the culmination of their work.
So will they post NC and SC addresses together so I can send money orders at one sitting?
My donation will make its way to NC in the next week! Count on it!
♥ ♥♥ this family blog, and immensely thankful to its editors, staff and the intertubes’ best commentariat!
Wow, Reslic! Just the person I want to ask! In addition to those, I’ve seen your name (assuming it’s referring to you, that is) styled on the site variously as:
re Silc
resilc
re silC
Re silC
re/silC
re/ silC
re Šilc
Re Šilc
(I could link to examples of each one but just trust me.)
So my longstanding questions are (1) why are there so many? and (2) assuming NC adopted a “house style” for your name (it’s up to them, of course, but consistency in style isn’t a bad thing), which variant would you prefer?
I have a house style, which is resilc, but Lambert and Jerri ignore it :-(
Haha, wow! I’m impressed that you even have a house style for that! ;)
It seems like it would take a bit of effort to come up with re/silC or re Šilc—the house style resilc just seems, well, easier. (On the plus side, I do find the variants intriguing at least.)
“ I picture [the commentariat] as smart, opinionated, but open to discussion, having a good amount of empathy and on a life-long learning path”
Exactly this. Even the people I vehemently disagree with on here I’d be happy to run into at a bar or similar. This place attracts good people.
Yuuuuuup
Have to be stingy this year. I got laid off. I’m OK because of union-negotiated severance. Still, I have to watch pennies, so could do only $35. Well worth it. Naked Capitalism wades through the BS, so I no longer am drowning in it. I’ve been reading Naked Capitalism everyday since I found it during the House vote on Fast Track for the TPP. It was the first place I found that didn’t present the story as a bunch of euphemisms and journalistic taboos. Yes. The Dems were crooked weasels, including Obama.
Ah, the famous resilc. Thanks so much for the many amazing links you’ve provided, you’ve filled up many of my lunch breaks with amazingly interesting reading.
resilc, one of the most reliable sources for good links!
Thanks a lot for your commentary and you links!
I too would like to voice my appreciation of all the work that resilc does in finding all those links. Your links are always worth paying attention to.
I am overdue for a contribution. Sometimes the weeks overlap from a work perspective, but I always make time for catching up with most of the recent links and posts. Outstanding work by those who run it, and an outstanding comments section where opposition is ok but best have the A game.
I found this site a little after the 2008 – 2009 crisis and the supposed end of Great Recession. Always can find something of interest and thought provoking !!
Maybe this questions have been answered before:
– Does Naked Capitalism have “tax exempt status”?
— If not? Why not?
— Why not, given that “Naked Capitalism” has been around for well over a decade?
– Donations (i.e. checks) are to be sent to “Aurora Advisors Incorporated”; a company that seems not to have been in business since ~2012…
(I don´t even mind Susan Webber(aka Yves Smith) paying herself a salary, it just seems disengenious to flag malpractice at CALPERS, whilst refusing to level with ‘Naked Capitalism’ donors/contributors)
You are seriously out of line in suggesting that not being a not for profit is somehow improper. We have a socialist donation model and still have to run ads to generate enough income to cover our costs.
I have explained repeatedly that we are too small to handle the administrative and cost burden of being a not for profit. They are cheap to set up and costly to maintain. For instance, the Rolling Jubilee project, which got over $700,000 which it spent in about a year, which is way way way more than we generate annually, AND had its accounting and legal services donated, was over six months late on its tax and regulatory filings, and was roundly criticized for that. Running a not for profit among other things requires having a board, having board meetings, documenting those board meetings….all administrativa which would cut substantially into writing time.
Oh, and my bank would requires a $10,000 minimum balance for a not for profit account. Another de facto cost and another indicator that not for profits are supposed to be bigger than we are (as in be actual organizations, not <2 full time writer equivalents). And please don't suggest that I shop for banks. Ten minutes is a lot of time for me.
And Aurora existed long before 2012.
Every word of this, and the fact that many guest bloggers are part of the regular commentariat and vice versa keep me here and giving what I can. Thank you Reslic, and thank you to Yves, Lambert, Jerri-Lynn for the work required to make the web what we know it can be.