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SAVING THE LADA….The government plans to bail out the country’s big automakers and the public is unhappy over the deal. Old news? Sure, except it’s happening in Russia too:

The dozens of demonstrations that have cropped up across Russia in recent weeks haven’t been particularly big. However, they have been significant as the first notable show of widespread dissent in the near-decade since Prime Minister Vladimir Putin cemented his hold on power.

Organizers say they will keep up the pressure unless the government reverses its decision to raise taxes on imported automobiles.

….The tax hike, which will be determined for each vehicle based on a complicated formula, will drastically increase the cost of foreign cars and trucks. Vehicles older than 5 years will be slapped with a duty of at least 70%, making their importation unprofitable.

This dynamic is playing out everywhere: governments all want to bail out their auto companies, but not every auto company can survive. There’s just too much vehicle manufacturing capacity in the world, and there has been for a while.

However, this story also suggests that, against all odds, it may be the consumers of the world who prevent a mass outbreak of new beggar-thy-neighbor tariff rules. National governments understandably feel a lot of pressure to protect their local industries, but it might turn out that their publics don’t really agree. Americans don’t like American car companies all that much, it turns out, and Russians don’t like Russian car companies either. Siberians would rather buy a Toyota than a Lada.

This might not turn out to be case for every industry, of course, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it restrains central governments from going too far down the protectionist path. Imports are just too popular with the unwashed masses.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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