Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


It’s now crystal clear that (a) there will be no further monetary stimulus, (b) there will be no further fiscal stimulus, (c) Europe is in real trouble that it’s very unlikely to address aggressively, and (d) China’s growth is slowing. We should be investing enormous amounts of money into green research and green adaptation (higher efficiency, conservation, etc.) but we’re not, and there’s little prospect of this happening in the near future.

It’s very hard for me to be optimistic about the economy in any way these days. Karl Smith keeps trying to tell me that pent-up demand for housing will drive recovery, and I’m sort of clinging to that. Maybe he’s right. But it remains the case that it takes money to buy a new house, no matter how pent-up your own personal demand is, and I don’t know where that’s going to come from. Last week a friend of mine finally gave up on keeping the mobile home she bought a few years ago. She just flatly can’t find a job, so she’s selling it (she hopes) and moving in with her sister. That has to stop happening before housing can recover, and so far I’m not sure it’s stopping.

I guess 9% unemployment is the new normal. Given our current unwillingness to do anything about it, I wouldn’t be surprised to see us stay at this level for two or three more years. Maybe longer. Maybe a lot longer.

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.

payment methods

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.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate