Yipee! Hit Third Fundraiser Target, On Our Way to the Fourth: Guest Bloggers

Thanks to the prompt responses of over 570 members of the Naked Capitalism community, we’ve met our first hurdle, our essential budget for IT support and defenses, the second target, supporting the comments section, and the third, funding to continue our expanded Links section (and meetups if some semblance of the old normal returns) at a solid pace.

As of 4 AM EST, we’ve already $4,050 towards our fourth target, $24,000 of funding for guest bloggers. Please give them a big round of monetary applause by going straight to the Tip Jar! Kind words in the comments section are also very much appreciated.

As long-standing readers know, over the years, we’ve been improving the caliber of writers who contribute to Naked Capitalism. We like to send our mainstays, Lambert and Nick a significant honorarium out of the fundraiser and also pay a final bonus to Jerri, and give smaller awards to our promising writers who have just started: John McGregor, Conor Gallagher, and KLG. We work on the old Wall Street partnership model: a thin level of assured pay, and then bonuses that reflect, on the generous side, their and the site’s performance that year. They’ve each stepped up in a very big way to shift their coverage, both the focus and the level of output, to match the stresses of the Covid outbreak.

Where would you be without Lambert helping keep our collective sanity by putting on his yellow waders to analyze Biden’s speeches and CDC’s official obfuscations? He’s also continued to address the material aspects of the supply chain (railroad strikes, container shipping), is lodging the occasional artwork review (“Spiral Jetty”), along with political arcana (the filbuster), and topics further afield, like RussiaGate, Grenfell Tower, wood stoves, and “personal risk assessment” under Covid.

Nick has greatly expanded our international coverage, for instance on how the war on cash and bank-related biometric ID strategies are moving ahead outside the US, as well as political/economic developments in Mexico and on banking stresses in Italy and emerging markets.

John McGregor and Conor Gallagher are opening new beats on political economy and geopolitics in Turkey, Italy, Australia, India, and soon China. Readers are keen to get KLG’s insider and technical view of dubious practices in medical and biosciences research. We’d also like to provide for a proper monetary thank you to Jerri-Lynn for her original reporting on the war on plastics and right to repair, her discussion of India’s use of its increasingly key geopolitical position, and her legal analysis of important decisions, such as glyphosate litigation.

Even though we pay our contributors for helping fill this site’s regular schedule at a good level, writing isn’t a very well remunerated line of work. Our guest bloggers regularly turn out in-depth analysis quickly, but the fact that they can do so is a result of their considerable experience and expertise.

We’d also like to send monetary “thanks yous” to Thomas Neuburger and other writers whose work we use.

Readers continue to send us humbling notes. From Chris W:

NC is urgently important for me, and, really, for American–and world–citizens who are concerned about our world.

May your star long shine!

And Thiele D:

​Many thanks to you, Lambert and the Naked Capitalism team for all the great work you do. I read and rely on the site every day

And PlutoniumKun:

NC is by a very long distance the best, most reliable guide to what is happening to the world. I’ve thought this for years, but after being bombarded the last 6 months with a relentless barrage of naked lies and outright stupidity over Ukraine I feel this even more strongly now.

So we hope you’ll acknowledge our writers’ skills and dedication with a big, generous thank you at the Tip Jar.