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The draft G-20 communiqué is here.  The final communiqué is here.  Looking solely at the section on financial regulation, it’s hard to see too many huge differences.  Regulation of hedge funds, which Obama was said to be resisting, is still there.  However, Obama was also said to be opposed to a greater role for international regulatory bodies, and he appears to have won that round.  The draft section that called for regulators “to supervise cross-border institutions and to complete the establishment of colleges of supervisors for all significant cross-border financial firms” is gone.

What else?  The section on tax havens got beefed up rhetorically with a single sentence: “The era of banking secrecy is over.”  That’s nice.

I haven’t looked at the rest in any detail, but it includes about a trillion dollars in loan pledges and IMF support, but no specific targets for domestic stimulus.  That number could have been higher, and probably should have been higher, but reality being what it is, that’s not bad.

And the big losers in all this?  Protesters.  The street wars were a big deal in Seattle, guys, but with every passing year your schtick just looks more and more pro forma.  Time to give it a rest.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

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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