September 23, 2008

Lehman and the Bailout

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LEHMAN AND THE BAILOUT….Was last week’s financial crisis caused by the Fed’s decision to allow Lehman Brothers to go into bankruptcy? I’m not sure, but here’s the basic argument in favor of this scenario:

  1. Monday: Fed allows Lehman to go bankrupt.

  2. Tuesday: Reserve Prime, a money market fund with exposure to Lehman securities, announces that it has “broken the buck.” Money market funds are supposed to be the safest places possible to park your cash outside of T-bills, so this causes a panic.

  3. Wednesday: Depositers start making large-scale withdrawals from other money market funds. Banks need to service these withdrawals, so they begin hoarding cash and calling in their short-term loans (excess reserves held by banks increased last week from a normal $2 billion to nearly $200 billion). Every bank is doing the same thing, so no money is available for normal interbank loans. LIBOR skyrockets.

  4. Later Wednesday: with everyone hoarding cash, the credit markets seize up completely. The commercial paper market, which funds actual operations of actual companies, is close to death. The entire financial system is near collapse.

  5. Thursday: Bernanke and Paulson announce their bailout plan. This reduces the panic that banks will go bust and thereby frees up the credit markets a bit.

More details here. If I understand everything correctly, Bernanke and Paulson basically took a look at what happened after they allowed Lehman to collapse and decided it couldn’t happen again. Hence the bailout.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists 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 hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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