October 31, 2008

Quote of the Day # 2 – 10.31.08

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QUOTE OF THE DAY #2….From Brad DeLong, trying to figure out what the hell has happened to the economy:

“A 3% decline in aggregate asset values should not be a big problem for the macroeconomy. Yet it is.”

To me, the answer appears to be related to derivative speculation. But that is probably too simpleminded. My own personal simplemindedness aside, however, it scares me that the world’s most sophisticated economists don’t seem to know what the answer is either.

On the other hand, as near as I can tell, we still don’t know for sure what caused the Great Depression or even the Black Monday crash of 1987. So maybe we’ll never really know with this one either.

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We've never been very good at being conservative.

And usually, that serves us well in doing the ambitious, hard-hitting journalism that you turn to Mother Jones for. But it also means we can't afford to come up short when it comes to scratching together the funds it takes to keep our team firing on all cylinders, and the truth is, we finished our budgeting cycle on June 30 about $100,000 short of our online goal.

This is no time to come up short. It's time to fight like hell, as our namesake would tell us to do, for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme agenda, where facts matter, and where accountability has a chance at the polls and in the press. If you value our reporting and you can right now, please help us dig out of the $100,000 hole we're starting our new budgeting cycle in with an always-needed and always-appreciated donation today.

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