June 2, 2012

Quote of the Day: Inflation Credibility is Not Really Our Big Problem These Days

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From Paul Krugman, bemoaning the fact that the European Central Bank has adopted such tight monetary policy:

The fact is that the ECB is highly credible: most observers, me included, are quite sure that it is totally allergic to inflation and relatively indifferent to the collapse of the real economy.

Yeah, I really don’t think the ECB has any inflation credibility issues at this point. Neither does the Fed. But they very definitely have some serious growth credibility issues.

So, anyway, as this post suggests, I’m back from Europe. Did their financial crisis affect me? Nope. Not a bit. But I will say this: in a fit of paranoia that I won’t pretend was fully rational, I took $2,000 in cash with me, something I’ve never done before. Why? I dunno. Just in case. I figured if the eurozone chose last week to collapse in panic, U.S. hundred-dollar bills might be a nice, 100% sure source of liquidity. Silly of me, I suppose, but there you have it.

And with that, I want to take this chance to thank all my guest bloggers for the past couple of weeks: Adam Serwer, Erik Kain, and Heather “Digby” Parton. I mean, not only did they write a lot of great stuff while I was gone (and you do follow them at their home blogs, don’t you?), but they even kept up Friday Catblogging. How great is that? Adam’s herd of Garfields is….impressive, no? And thanks also to Kate Sheppard, for extra bonus catblogging.

All this means that nobody has any reason to complain of cat withdrawal symptoms, which means I really have no excuse for writing an interminable Cat Tour of Europe™ post tomorrow. But I’m going to anyway. I know you’re all looking forward to it, aren’t you?

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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.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

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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