Thanks so much for your readership and support! We would not still be here if it were not for how much interest and input we’ve gotten, even from the very early days of this site. A tech friend, Ed Wright, encouraged me to start up a blog (he wanted one as a toy) and it seemed then, in the winter of 2006, that there might be enough to say to sustain one, given the too-obvious signs of serious trouble in the credit markets that were barely getting any attention in the financial press.
Right after we launched, we would look daily at our tiny number of page views. Mark Thoma both linked to us and encouraged us to soldier on, saying that it wasn’t long before his site, Economist’s View, was getting more page views in an hour than it had gotten in an entire day.
We’d set traffic targets for six, twelve, eighteen and twenty-four months where we needed to be to justify continuing to publish. It looked like we were well short at six months when the Bear Stearns subprime hedge funds obligingly blew up, one of the events that signaled the start of the first of four acute phases of the financial crisis, the last being the Lehman failure, followed shortly by the collapse of AIG and the near meltdown of the global financial system. Early promoters of our work included Felix Salmon, Nouriel Roubini, Barry Ritholtz, Ed Harrison, Tanta, Jane Hamsher, and yes, Paul Krugman.
And a special thanks to CalPERS, which was the subject of our very first post, Fools and Their Money (Hedge Fund Edition), and has proved to be long form shaggy dog story.
As much as the events that produced the financial were proof of how misguided financial services industry deregulation had been, particularly of derivatives, it also generated a vibrant econoblogosphere. Sadly, independent commentary is a pale shadow of what it once was; one of the few voices still active from that era is the consistently insightful Steve Waldman.
Matt Stoller found us during that era and posted here for many years, and also not only told us to have fundraisers but also gave considerable advice as to how to do it. Lambert and I joke that we’ve known each other from time immemorial; neither of us recalls exactly how and when he started letting us use his work from Corrente and over time migrated his writing to Naked Capitalism. Stoller was also responsible for organizing a listserv that became a critically important locus for anti-foreclosure activism. Securitization maven and Naked Capitalism writer Thomas Adams played a critical role in educating foreclosure defense attorneys, staffers of attorneys general, influential investors, and law professors like Adam Levitin and Katie Porter about the nitty-gritty of pooling and servicing agreements, CDOs, and servicing practices.
In the interest of not trying reader patience, we are skipping over quite a few of the formative episodes of our history, such as political economist Tom Ferguson’s considerable help with ECONNED and regular input since then; young economists we were fortunate enough to showcase and have since then established independent reputations, like Philip Pilkington and Nathan Tankus; Richard Smith and Andrew Dittmer, who were both indispensable during the writing of ECONNED and each provided many important posts; advice from financial services industry experts and sometimes guest posters like Satyajit Das and Marshall Auerback, and on the IT technology side, Clive; the industry insiders that helped educate us about the inner workings of private equity; and much more recently, our Brexit and Covid brain trusts. We are also glad to have Nick Corbishley join us and expand our financial services and European/Latin American reporting.
It’s also been a complex process to find qualified tech experts who will work on a comparatively small site, so we are very grateful to have Keith Friedman and Dave Jagoda on our team.
And last but the antithesis of least is our very loyal, always insightful and outspoken commentariat. Jerri-Lynn as well as guest writers like Michael Hudson, John Siman, Thomas Neuburger, and Michael Olenick, say that the reason they like publishing at Naked Capitalism is the thoughtful, well-informed, and occasionally a little too candid reader thoughts and reactions. So many have provided such important input on so many topics, from electrical grids to nitty gritty local politics in the US and around the world to weapons systems to the merits of various translations of seminal works to beer making that we are daunted by the prospect of giving adequate thanks for so much input. And that’s before also expressing gratitude to those of who are able and inclined to give financial support, send us links, and evangelize friends and colleagues about our work.
Now back to the grindstone! And best wishes for the holidays and 2022!
105 comments
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In 3 years I can buy you a drink! I can hardly wait!
Not in the Puritanical States. You can own an AR15 though. I think this site will be an important source for historians documenting the decline and fall of the US. Fascinating to see it happening in real time. I thought it would take another century or two, perhaps decades but it seems to have passed a tipping point.
Then let’s buy them an AR-15!
Happy birthday!
It appears it will be Mother Nature that sets the timetable: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/18/scientists-watch-giant-doomsday-glacier-in-antarctica-with-concern. Sooner rather than later.
Happy 15th birthday, I’ll be good for the 23rd I think, after that it’ll be year to year.
The collective ability to crystalize the crazy is a treasure in these troubled times.
Hopefully it will ,one day, be more about about real cats than the fatty human ones, but until then, onwards!
We share a birthday, how nice.
My oh my, I’m glad I’m not 15. I remember being worried about pimples. But Happy Birthday in any case. The best aspect of NC is the comment moderation. I can imagine that takes a lot of work. Much appreciated. Party on Garth!
Congratulations! May the next 15 follow in the same trajectory. I’ve predominantly been a lurker and only very occasional commenter of this essential news site since I began trying to make sense of the financial crisis that wasn’t being made anywhere else. As for so many others, NC is the first I read when I wake and the last before I go to bed. I’m in awe of the work Yves, Lambert, Jerri Lynn and the rest of you do to keep this very special corner of the internet running. Not to mention the commentariat, you’re undoubtedly the best there is. It is not an exaggeration to say that this place is an important part of me keeping my sanity the last 10+ years. It really does help knowing that you’re not alone, swimming in the sea of Washington Consensus we’re all engulfed in.
Also, you share the birthday with my second son who was born today – all the more reason to celebrate!
I found Naked Capitalism through a couple of places:
1) Calculated Risk;
2) Automatic Earth; and
3) bobswern’s diaries at DailyKos.
Bob wrote diaries on DK pointing people to NC several times a week. There was often a lot of pushback because NC didn’t genuflect before Obama and the Democratic Party, and eventually, bobswern was banished from DailyKos.
Lambert I had remembered going all the way back to Eschaton’s early days. We had even corresponded a few times when I was doing “The Right Christian.”
And I fondly remember the days when David Graeber’s writing would appear here back in the Occupy times.
Fifteen years. In a lot of ways, it seems much longer than that.
NC – Eves and company –
congrats and thanks for your continuing efforts
i think i wandered over from FireDogLake iirc
to many more indeed
Happy Birthday, NC ???
I migrated from Balloon Juice via Daily Kos via James Carville Political Books (yeah yeah I was in a phase back in 2009 ?)
Thanks for actually providing news. It’s a simple act, but one in which 99.9% of “news” websites fail miserably at.
Happy Birthday! And thank you. Found you from a link in the now defunct Gawker site 6 months before the 2016 election. You’ve helped my iq climb a bit, made my arguments a little more effective, and made me more attuned to what’s happening in the world. Priceless.
And next year, this site will be old enough to drive. Look out, world!
Happy birthday NC! Its an amazing achievement.
Still the first port of call every morning after so many years.
‘occasionally a little too candid reader thoughts and reactions’
I have been guilty of that and while I sometimes disagreed with this or that stance it wouldn’t be nearly so stimulating a site if there was always general agreement.
Your work has been very important during a difficult time and helped many of us to navigate its shoals.
Congratulations, and thank you.
Happy birthday. I can’t remember how I found the site or even how many years I’ve been reading it. Have a vague feeling, thought, not even a memory, that it was through Mark Ames. It’s got to be more than ten years. Well, whatever. NC is just the best and the commentariat is the best.
I’ll bet you and your team had a lot of promise when YOU were fifteen years old. Congratulations, NC has changed the world in a very good way, sure has illuminated my world.
Best wishes!
KCS
As a constant reader-hardly ever commenter-lurker of the comments section- of three, going on four, years I have to say this has become one of my few refuges online; a blog that feels more like a community, without all the trappings of the social network “communities” we so deride.
Much appreciation to the team and the constant gardeners of the comment section, whose contributions I look forward to as much as the regular posts.
From this man from the Caribbean to all: happy 15th and may we have it for many more.
Wow I can’t believe it has been 15 years already. I must have been following since 2007/2008 after Barry Ritholtz shared a link to your blog. After years of trying to understand the world by following the MSM I always felt that they never truly described the reality of what was really going on.
Then after reading a few posts on here things finally began to make sense and it felt like I was part of a small club. Great contributors and thoughtful discussions by a wide ranging and well informed commentariat has kept me coming back ever since.
Now if I had only followed Crazyman Fund’s investing style before he was banned/left I would be rich. Oh well congratulations on 15 years.
I miss Craazyman too but he had a real meltdown in comments. Remember his ode to the car he lost in Hurricane Sandy?
Yep, I think it was a Ritholtz link that drew my attention back then. NC altered my worldview, to the point that I don’t pay much attention to Ritholtz any longer.
I quickly learned to keep my mouth shut, and my head down, since I was never gonna be the sharpest knife in the six-pack at NC. Although it was humbling, I really needed to experience that vital piece of self awareness! My wife thanks you.
Same with me, except that it was Krugman who referred me. I don’t think I’ve read a single word of his in the past 6 years…
I could write the same comment verbatim. Thanks to Yves, Lambert, and all.
I’ve been lurking since at least March, 2009, that’s as far back as my daily records go. Kudos throughout! Never commenting until recently as other outlets have fallen.
For those who might have noticed, always as with my screen name, I commented on Firedoglake in the thousands, and when they fell, onto Truthdig in the thousands, until they fell. Then onto Popular Resistance until Kevin Zeese fell and they shut down comments. Then briefly onto Leftist Politics until they fell. I rarely comment on NC because I am almost always a day late (and more than a dollar short for donations, a Widow’s mite as was recently said) as my pet computer Alex reads me the posts, and comments (I can no longer read the pages well). When I find something I might add to (or subtract from) someone has often already said it. To clarify as to other outlets haven fallen. I often linked to NC
Happy Birf’day #NC!!! Once again, so thankful for this family blog! Thanks for giving the #MMT community a platform! I came here initially via articles crossposted from neweconomicperspectives.org where Randy Wray was at the time doing his own blog, which eventually became his #MMT textbook. I stayed for the superlative coverage of markets, politics, culture, sociology, philosophy, music etc and of course, the commentariat! What a truly special place this is!
I gotta throw out Harry Shearer – that’s how I got here. I heard Yves on Le Show ( how many years now? 8?) and like many of you it’s “First thing, then all day” for me too. I’m just a rube with finance, but with NC I can slog my way through the weeds. Usually – certainly not always – but enough sticks that I have a general sense of how the financial world works. I don’t know how I would have learned that any other way. For that I am profoundly grateful. Thanks.
Exactly my experience, too.
I was a lurker on NC until the statute of limitations ran out and I joined the fray. Always look forward to the links and amazing cross currents of critical thinkers on display here on a daily basis.
Thanks for keeping me off the streets and congratulations on your birthday!
Happy Birthday! I first came across NC via a blog roll on Calculated Risk, back in the good old days, when Lehman was above ground and Zero Hedge was good.
I raise my coffee mug to NC and all the people that make it possible. Like a lot of people, NC book-ends my day as it is the first thing that I look over in the morning and I am always waiting at night for Links and other articles to come online. Having most main stream media be nothing but a s***show of propaganda, it is a relief to come to an island of sanity that includes not only the great people who built NC, but some of the most interesting and smartest people that I have met on the net in the comments section. But one thing is for sure. After 15 years, the world of 2006 is a whole other place that seems so far from us now-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006
I think I connected via The Oil Drum or TAE about 15 years ago. Thanks for a good ride!
It’s amazing some of you can pin down exactly when and how you came across Naked Capitalism for the first time. In my case it was probably in 2007 or 8, and likely from a link at the late blog Firedoglake. In neither case am I absolutely sure. It wasn’t long after that first click I sent Yves a link and the next day there it was on the site at 6 am, US central time. Great things happen here.
Happy Birthday.
How time flies, how i found NC is unfortunately lost, but as i was engaged to locate sources for open source intel, thst might have been the entry to the NC community.
I do not remember how I found naked capitalism, but it was probably late 2009, when I realized, reading right here, that Barack Obama was just another tool of the monied class. And there have been many other eye-openers since then, which is probably while it is the first thing I look at every morning. Thank you, Yves and crew, thank you, Commentariat. As many have said, “an island of sanity.”
I don’t recall exactly how I found this place – was it through my extremely distant cousin Brad DeLong’s site? Did someone reference it at the late lamented Fafblog!? Was it the daily reminder towards the top of the blogroll at BLCKDGRD? However it happened, I’m grateful. Long may you wave.
15 years and some nice recognition(beyond that mentioned):
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/11/naked-capitalism-added-to-library-of-congress.html
my thanks
In this environment of the past 2 decades, this is an incredible accomplishment —- one worthy of gratitude and awe really. Long may this site live, breath, and enlighten!
Yves, Lambert, Jerri-Lynn and team,
I continue to marvel at the sheer volume of high quality content that you produce daily. You must review so much more, and stay on top of even more topics and trends. To the lay person, that appears to happen through
magicincredible effort, and it might be worth a column some time to share a few of your productivity methods.Thanks for a great site!
Congrats. I’m trying to remember how I first came across Naked Capitalism and really can’t. It’s part of my essential daily fabric.
Me either. I know there was a time before Naked Capitalism but I don’t remember the dividing line. I’m pretty sure I followed a link from Lambert’s Corrente since I was a regular there.
In any case, Happy Birthday dear Naked Capitalism!! I’m so glad to be a part of your world.
Happy Birthday!
Since origin stories seem to be the order of the day, I found NC through Pragmatic Capitalism sometime in 2007-2008.
Although I received my economics degree from Wharton in 1972, I didn’t really understand what was going on at the beginning of the GFC. I just knew it was bad, really bad.
Yves and the other economics and finance experts who write here have a way of translating the jargon of finance into easily understandable terms that illuminate the underbelly of the Wall Street vampire squid.
With Lambert’s perspicacity and command of the English language and Jerri-Lynn’s excellent writing on topics ranging from legal issues to gardening, there is no place like NC anywhere on the net.
What a long, strange trip it’s been!
I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Congratulations. Maybe some of us fall into the “little too candid” category but to me one of the virtues of this blog is that you can do that. Disagreement is allowed and debate is encouraged. Time wasting trolling is discouraged. Meanwhile many corners of the web are going in the opposite direction.
NC–long may it wave.
Happy Birthday, NC, and big thanks to everyone who works to make it possible!
Cheers
Happy birthday! I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t wake up to NC’s morning links. NC is always ahead of the curve.
I can’t believe it has been 15 years. NC has been such an amazing pleasure to read and a place to learn so much about what is really going on. Happy Birthday Yves et.al.
Congrats Yves! I retired in August 2006 which gave me more time to peruse the web so I think I discovered this site not long after you started. Being reading it every day since.
We found NC through the Oil Drum… must’ve been in the 2007 era. NC was way out in front in the GFC era. Since then you’ve been way out in front of a LOT of important things, most significantly COVID. Given a single choice between morning coffee and NC morning links/original posts, I’d give up coffee! In the late afternoon, I’d give up my 2 beers for Watercooler.
Happy Happy Birthday Baby!
I came to NC through the Bill Moyers and Co. show. I miss that weekly show and hope Mr. Moyers is doing well. Very thankful i do not have to miss Naked Capitalism. Happy Birthday! and much thanks for all the info and analysis over the years.
Happy 15th! How I wish this site were required reading across our widely misinformed land!
Well done. I’m sure I’m not alone in starting my day with the 7:00am ET links and then checking in at 2:00 for the Water Cooler. Credibility is what you’ve cultivated and grown over the years. That’s an endangered thing these days.
About 6-7 years ago, I began running across repeated mentions and links to NC in boing boing and after a while, realized that it was Cory Doctorow who kept posting those links. So one day I decided to visit the actual site and have been hooked since. Thank you all for helping to cut through the corporate and government propaganda and get to the real issues facing us.
Happy Birthday!
Not sure when I first came here but not long after buying ECONned in hardback, so maybe early 2011. This set me on a course which included completing a PPE with the Open University in the UK (ok, lets see what they teach these people). Thank you – you certainly developed my take on the world, and you still do.
I’ll pile on here and say Happy Birthday to NC.
I came here via Paul Krugman’s New York Times column.
As long as the Internet stays some sort of “free,” I’ll be reading this blog.
I’ll echo some of the comments upslope and say that one of the big virtues of this blog is it’s tolerance of “eccentricity.” Dissent is a needed spur to growth. When dissent is shut down, decay and dissolution is inevitable.
Stay safe!
same here, krugman recommended Calculated Risk and NC to readers who wanted more info on the goings on in 2007-8 approximately.
Happy Bday
The best website ever IMO
Yes, many congratulations, Yves and Co. Yours is a terrific achievement.
I was an habitual reader of Willem Buiter’s Maverecon until he closed it at the end of 2009. One of the last things he wrote on that blog IIRC was a recommendation to his readers to come to Naked Capitalism. It was an excellent piece of advice. I acted on it at once and have been a reader ever since. Have I missed a day or two? Perhaps through illness or something else that could not be avoided, but otherwise I have visited the site every day I can and recommend it to anyone who is trying to understand the world in which we live. You are providing an absolutely invaluable service at a time of great need, All your readers are very much in your debt.
Thank you, very deeply and sincerely.
Ah, back in the day! Remember early Glen Greenwald, Riverbend of Bagdhad Burning, Bump in the Beltway and, of course, Firedoglake, where I posted updates from the ground on Occupy Denver. Must have been about 2008 when I discovered NC. A lot of change since then; more disillusionment with both political parties here in US, but people actually mentioning Socialism in polite company! Well, maybe not ‘polite.’
Happy birthday and as they say in Sweden, may you live a hundred more!
Riverbend of Baghad Burning? I do hope that she eventually found safe harbour. I use to read her blog all the time.
Such great critical analysis here – can we pass a federal mandate forcing people to take the NakedCapitalism Vaccine?
Happy birthday, and best wishes to current and past Naked Capitalism staff! I can’t recall how I first found NC. I think it was around the time of the financial crisis of 2009 when I was looking for information that seemed to be missing in the mainstream media. I wanted to understand what was happening in the world of finance, and this site gave me that and much, much more.
I’m sure I have commented way more often than my expertise in anything would warrant, but I so appreciate being able to exchange views on a platform that refuses to tolerate the typical internet aggro.
Happy birthday! Many thanks to PropOrNot for introducing us.
Many happy returns, Yves and the team.
I came across NC in the summer of 2008. A link was posted BTL at the Grauniad. It was many years before I commented. A few years ago, I linked an NC post BTL and was slated for my comment and link. There was a reply contemptuous of a site called NC, i.e. the name suggested deluded Corbynites. Not long after, I was banned from the Grauniad.
It’s interesting how many of us found NC in 2008.
I suspect there are many readers who don’t comment and would say to them, please do.
I note that, apart from Thuto, Synoia and David, there are no commentators of African origin and / or who have lived there. Please do pipe up as the continent should be part of the conversation. Same with the sub-continent and Middle East.
Happy Birthday!
I have no idea how I stumbled on this magnificent site. It was at some point around the 2008 election, when I was searching for information about the impending bankster perp walks that never happened — could have even been sent here by reading Krugman! After lurking for a few years I screwed-up the courage to start commenting (under a different portmanteau) and have been an avid reader ever since. Through the Commentariat I have made actual frienships with other commenters.
Naked Capitalism is so much more than a place for sane educated people to vent — this community has continually bent the cultural narrative toward truth. Congratulations to all!
Major Congratulations Yves, Lambert, Jerri-Lynn, and a terrific Commentariat! 15 years, wow! Much deserved. I’m another one who followed bobswern on DKos to here. Now, I’ve become a grateful, small donor. I consider NC my daily newspaper. Thank you for the terrific coverage even though I don’t always understand the financial/economic lingo. As another hero of mine would say, “Live Long and Prosper.”
Unfortunately our times are more in tune with the Star Trek Voyager take on that, “Live Fast and Prosper.”
Happy birthday. Thank you Yves. Lambert. Jerri Lynn. Yes this site is my first thing in the morning ritual. Gosh 08-09?Lost to computers past. Came by way of FDL. By the way what ever became of Jane Hamsher. Thank you and the commenters keeping me sane and informed all these years. From the beautiful snow covered coast of AK i shall tip one for you all later today. Bob.
Cannot remember exactly how I stumbled across NC. Probably after reading ‘Econned’.
It is a vital source of amazing, searing insights available nowhere else.
In one word it is a gem.
A gleaming gem that shines amongst a heap of MSM that is ‘captured, compromised and corrupted.’
Nothing else like it.
Brilliant. Original. Exceptional.
You get the picture. I love it.
Thank-you for the mountain of work.
If all “comment sections” were as great as NC’s this would be a better and more informed world, it’s the gold standard hands down. Thanks for all of it!
Happy anniversary! I found NC via Calculated Risk in the 2007-2008 timeframe and your site has since become my go to on not only financial topics, but many other topics as well, for all of the reasons listed in your post here.
I wish you all many, many more years of successful operation. With the dumpster fire called our national media swirling around the toilet bowl, the country is in dire need of the insightful service you provide.
Happy Birthday!
And may you all continue to thrive well into future years!
Yves, and Crew. I simply cannot fathom how you keep the ship of NC on course with the swirling winds of the high seas pressing against the sails and the tiller wanting to wander away from the horizon. After 15 years this is truly a worthy and experienced crew. H a p p y B i r t h d a y t o Y o u !
I found this site with much relief, I could not find much on the left that wasn’t just a Democrat party site. I was wise to their crooked scams after Bill Clinton was elected. I found this site listed on the prop or not list. Along with a couple of other sites. I follow every day.
Thank you so much for being here. I enjoy the intelligent stories and comments. I love nature, animals and plants and look forward to those each day.
A completely required daily read. I would add, that your Covid links, so varied, and so international may even be saving many lives. Seriously. I would’ve got a booster and kept doing the mask thing in SF….but lately….I agree….and got very very cautious for what is coming….Ventilation indeed. Such an important site. I came here early on after the crash, and reading the book. And also note, on FB (ugh! but I have many friends, music, left politics there)….so many people pull from this site…..!!!!!
My first memories of Naked Capitalism was in the days following the 2008 crash and election. I don’t remember how I found it, could have been FireDogLake, Daily Kos or Eschaton. I was on medical leave from my 14+ hour a day job. I had been expecting real estate to crash for over two years, but was confused by how that was taking down every thing else. Even early on I found that even if the post left me going what, there was likely some help in the comments giving me someplace to start looking to figure it out. But it was still a drop by. It became a daily habit during the ACA kabuki, which wiped out Kos. It was left as my only regular curator of news during the 2016 election as it became obvious that most of my other hang outs were….well….delusional regarding both Trump’s sales ability AND Clinton’s massive problems as a candidate. (I was confused how people could miss that most of their dings about Trump could easily apply to HRC.)
This place is a godsend. Educational, calming, infuriating, logical, humorous and something I see rare anymore, logical. And that applies as much to 90+% of the commenters too.
Happy Birthday, Naked Capitalism! And many thanks to Yves, Lambert, Jerri Lynn, Jules and contributors, and some additional gratitude to a community that happily provides a map, a wobbly, an anecdote, and endless media commentary YouTubes! Many happy returns of the day.
I first found Yves in an interview with Bill Moyers!
My mind was out to lunch – concerning economics and politics and how they meet/cross. This site has been an eye – I mean a brain opener – in this.
Thanks.
Thank you, Yves and the team. I started coming to the site when Yves posted her condo for sale in NYC. I think that was 2008. I must have at least 3k hours here if not more. I really need to drop more coin for support. I am not that flush with money but rich in sourced knowledge thanks to this site.
I have learned so much and I feel that this is truly an oasis in the desert of a parched failed empire.
We all hope for the best, but we cannot move forward unless we know what we are dealing with when navigating the minefield.
Please continue and may all of the team stay healthy and keep fighting.
Um, hate to tell you but I never owned a condo, only coops, and I sold the last one I owned in 1989. Lived in a very nice rental from 1992 till I left Manhattan in 2019.
It was a friends if memory serves, made a comment about the authenticity dramas with the craze at the time wrt provincial Chinese cabinets, vases, wall hangings.
My bad. Lost in cobwebs of my mind. Otherwise I stand by the rest of my story.
Back before NC in my deep dive internet days I spied a few early podcasts by Yves which caught my attention due to her command of subject matter backed up by personal experience. Then I randomly saw her on a MSM talk show where NC was mentioned and the rest is history.
Boy those early NC no sacred cow days were both hectic and brutal, especially as deemed a threat to some special interests or attempts by some to diminish it by any means necessary. Yet through that I found some very interesting people which furthered my desire to learn/understand more and then enable me to carry that knowledge elsewhere to share. Not to mention the thousands of times since I’ve pointed out NC to others at work and socially when subject matter allows. Say the immunologist from Boulder CU now living and working here, whilst I worked on his house during the first wave of covid. Mentioned NC a few times in chats about covid and remember the look in his eyes after he first had a gander at it, curiosity had been primed. A whole new perspective at a multivariate world outside some narrow discipline or group think. Best bit is I don’t have to sell it, just suggest the information on topics presented is worth it, as well the depth of the commentariat going over it.
Lastly I ponder what some of the old NC’ers are doing these days, Doc Holiday was a hoot, he who can’t be named that starts with A after a ethical breach of epic proportions, even remember them in relationship to names when they pop up like Mary Joe of late – flood of memories over that name … wow …
Lmmao … came for the information and got threats of legal suits …
Yet here – we – all are, at the end of the day, would have it no other way, especially now with covid, I thank you all …
Happy birthday! I don’t think I have been here for the full 15, but I definitely remember following the Bear/Lehman saga on NC, so I can’t be too far short. I had picked up enough details to know that something very important was going on, and it was very difficult to understand what the heck was happening from the MSM reports (and it was becoming apparent that a lot of parties were spinning it in their own interests). NC by contrast was a model of clarity, and made sense of much that had been confusing.
I credit NC with helping me predict the GFC (or at least predict something bad, even if I was a little fuzzy on what form it would take) and make some key life decisions that look very wise and/or fortunate in hindsight. It was not the only factor in that, but it was definitely one of the most important ones. It remains perhaps my top source for figuring out what’s really going on when my bullshit radar alerts me to something amiss – sadly a more and more frequent occurrence these days.
Stumbled on NC as a newbie federal judge trying to understand the great foreclosure crisis. Reading “Econned” opened my eyes to the Law and Economics scam I had been sold at a top 10 law school in the late 70s. My modest attempts to balance the scales–tilted then, as now, so obscenely in the banks’ favor–were as welcome on appeal as a fart in a flightsuit.
Recently retired, I am so grateful for this daily digital isle of sanity. Another 15 years please, and don’t stop then!
Happy Birthday!
Tanta sent me here in the days when Calculated Risk had the best informed and most thoughtful commentariat.
NC has surpassed CR,in large part due to the moderators who silently keep things on track.
Thank you all.
Happy Birthday…so glad you have been the education that so many need.
I think it was 2007 through Paul Ughman, Calculated Risk, or Patrick.net in the forums on housing this wonderful blog came to my attention.
After being stupid and buying a house to flip this gave me the information to know something was about to happen. I knew something was wrong when I went to Wells Fargo and they told me just sign on the dotted line with no paperwork. If I qualify that means they were giving out loans with no underwriting.
As for the house, sorry didn’t know any better till NC, it was sold off weeks before the crash.
I remember getting out the the dictionary and looking up terms to understand their meanings. NC was the education I needed.
This community’s good can’t be overstated. I don’t post much but read this blog everyday.
Please keep up the great work. cheers
Happy Birthday! So grateful for you, and the team that keep NC going, and for the commentariat. Love you guys.
I came upon the site after reading ECONNED when a friend emailed me a link. Not a day goes without something of value appearing in the links and/or comments.
Happy Birthday! Loyal lurker since way back, probably 2006. This is my very first ever comment!
I retired in August 2006 and finally had time to try to figure out what made Republicans tick, and somehow quickly ended up with NC as my daily rock. It’s been an amazing journey ever since. I especially appreciate the introduction to MMT, which I may not have otherwise ever even heard of.
(I AM amazed though that so many worldly-wise NCers still seem to believe in germ theory!)
Thank you for your continued astonishingly dedicated work.
Congratulations on birthing and nurturing Naked Capitalism, Yves. I first learned of this site by hanging out at Baseline Scenario — and pretty quickly migrated over here. I think that was around 2011. Ever since, I’ve started every day, and ended most of them, on this site — just like so many others chiming in here today.
For me, the NC meetup in Cleveland in June of 2019 still looms large. Len and I had the pleasure of meeting Yves and serving as her personal taxi service, which was great! NC-ers drove in from Detroit, Ontario, Columbus and rural Ohio to join us at Bar Cento in Cleveland’s Ohio City, back in the before-times when travel and restaurants were ordinary parts of life. Ah, those were the days, eh?
Anyway, heartfelt gratitude to all those who keep this site humming — you provide a lifeline to so many of us around the world who somehow seem to make up that rarest of things — a true community. And to Yves — thanks, Mom. We love you!
As fate would have it, it was my late mother who turned me on to Naked Capitalism.
Huzzah!! Huzzah!! Huzzah!!
Just an amazing contribution to our lives. A thousand thanks.
Congratulations! I would be so much less well informed without Naked Capitalism. Keep up the great work.
Happy Birthday NC and Yves, Lambert and Jerri-Lynn and to all who makes this blog the best. I found NC through the late FiredogLake. After reading the first posting, I was hooked. This must have been around 2009 – I went back and read a lot of old posts about the GFC and educated myself. One of my regrets was not attending one of the SF meetups when I lived there.
Thank you all so much – here’s to another 15 years – at least!!
I think Yves is being more modest than she acknowledges and her achievement are underapprecired (or perhaps unknown) to her fans despite the deserved praise in theses comments, Hard to describe that while she was attracting (and deserved the attention she was getting from her peers) she broke an elitist class barrier, IMHO, by welcoming non credentialed interested parties into her project.
She barely touches on her role in supporting Occupy and her help in bringing like minded activist together, particularly in her participation w Occuppy subgroups like The Alternative Banking group and Occupy the SEC.
I first came across Yves in the early days of the financial meltdown when I was a sarbanes Oxley Compliance officer for a global bank covering their CDO operations. Nobody was paying attention to us till the days management came screaming to us with their hair on fire demanding we explain just WTF was happening.
One of the few places to go to find out was NC. And she was spot on and invaluable.
(And as clueless as I was about Yves moniker, I thought she was a he who was a vicious queen who one dare not challenge unless absolutely sure they would not be castrated, cause she did do that if you were fool enough to waste her time)
Then she published EConned
Her scoop was preempted by ProPublica bit neverless her research was more in depth and spot on.
And since then she has been a must read for anyone attached to finance who still has a shred of a soul left.
So back to my admiration for her in her Occupy Days.
She’s brilliant , yet not a snob and she encouraged me to meet the small group at Occupy the Sec who had the great idea to game the regularly rules system against itself.
All regularly rule changes need to be subject to public comment.
So that’s what we did.
A small group of us went line by line w the regularly changes and argued each lines flaws.
And it worked. Thanks, not to me,only a bit, but to the resolve of my few friends ( probably less than 10) the Volcker rule separating investment baking from forestalled a catastrophe I believe.
Ps
Having had a moment in helping perfect the rule
I got a job at a bank afterward leading the team enforcing the testing rule.
I’m a newbie of less than 5 years. I’d read scattered articles that I’d found through the “progressive” (oh, how I’ve come to hate that word) news and blog o sphere.
I’m glad the site has kept the same look for so long since I distinctly remember thinking “what was that great orange blog site?”
I think I re-found the site either through Bill Moyers or Tom Engelhardt. I wonder how many people have started coming here through the new-ish lefty podcast world. Radio war nerd and Liz Franczak of TrueAnon fame have been vocal supporters.
Stay healthy and thanks so much for everything you do!
(Semi-relatedly: I hope more millennial or younger readers pipe up in the comments. Even though we’re less knowledgeable and wise it’s gratifying to see a new generation bubbling up. Gives me some hope for the future. I’m thinking specifically of Massinissa (sp?) from whom I haven’t seen a comment in a while. Not that I’m calling anybody old! But the invocation of 15 years put me in that frame of mind)
Happy Birthday, NC.
Happy birthday Yves. I recall sending links from NC to DemocracyNow during 2008-9, for Amy Goodman’s headlines segment. Many of them were used on air, and I realized how valuable this site was, much more valuable than DemocracyNow is now I am sad to say.
Back in the mists of time I think I first saw Yves on Bill Moyers. Also TAE showed me the way here. NC is a twice daily thing for me now – has seen me through some extreme events and today keeps my ship steady. I wish there was more on the public banking movement which I’ve been a part of since 2011. I am grateful for everything MMT. Maybe someday there’ll be meetups again and I can get to one. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy the commentariat – always thought-provoking. Thanks for your very worthy hard work. Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday. Not remembering how I found the site. Day late and a dollar short….I did get to one meet up of a local group in Tucson wile visiting friends.
Late to the party here, nonetheless, happy birthday NC! I think I wandered on here after one of Yves interviews with Bill Moyers. Can’t believe it’s that long!? Thank you Yves, Lambert, J-L and everyone who keep this site running so smoothly.
I remember coming to NC the first time, via Barry Ritholtz, and thinking, wow, I don’t understand any of this (derivatives, etc.) and I need to! Sticking with NC has been a great education (and of course, reading ECONned helped as well). Congratulations, and thank you!
Here in Blighty we have a fresh Minister of Health ministering to the needs of the country during pandemic. Relevant
background? … Ex- MD DB Asia 2007-9 commods etc?… prior in US emerging (Mexican ) bonds….
One or two months in and we have this priceless quote …
in his former career as a trader the ‘most important
decisions’ were taken when data were ‘early and patchy, but a
trend was emerging
Plus ca change ..
Congrats on the first 15!
Still the antidote…
Running behind on reading posts at the moment.
As mainstream news becomes more and more silly and superficial I get most of my news and analysis from here since around the time of Deepwater Horizon, where I found NC via the Oil Drum.
Very belated happy birthday and many happy returns.