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As usual for our kickoff post, we’ll look at the last year and what may be in store.
In 2024, conflicts, both within societies and between states, increased in number and intensity. If this tendency persists, the implications are profound. It’s pumping too much energy into a system. At some point, there will be a state change, a chaotic break. In keeping, uncomfortably many pundits are depicting nuclear war as way to settle some disputes, as if ending the world as we know it is an acceptable cost.
Though most commentators put domestic and foreign policy issues in separate mental silos, in the US and Europe, the wars are more and more coming home. They are diverting official attention away from the civilizational threats of climate change and biosphere loss. That may be no accident, since war is a carbon-intensive activity.
This means that all sorts of risks are heightened, such as financial plunges to supply chain seize-ups meaning you can’t get critical medications or your employer can’t get inputs, putting your job in harm’s way.
This humble blog, with the considerable help of the commentariat, continues to seek to be early and accurate in identifying incipient developments. That objective has been made far more difficult because many at the top have gone into “Truth is the first casualty of war” mode.
But from the standpoint of the broader communities who these leaders are supposed to serve, a sound understanding should have led to course corrections. For instance, US and NATO officials buying their own hype that Russia was weak and (always) running out of missiles led to the West spending vast amounts of money and even draining their weapons stocks to critically low levels. Yet Russia is now moving every more rapidly across Ukraine, and is faced with the high class problem of how much to occupy before it calls it a day.
Similarly, as Jeffrey Sachs and many others have pointed out, China is an economic competitor but is not an enemy. Yet the US is determined to make it one when no military analyst with an operating brain cell thinks we could win in a hot conflict. But instead of finding off ramps here and in the potentially explosive Middle East, our putative leaders risk world wars.
These are far from the only examples of a bizarre disconnect between prevailing messaging and conditions on the ground. Witness dithering and collective neglect of Covid (and mpox and avian flu and even a newly nasty RSV) as the disease burden is pushing medical systems into near collapse and producing more disability, particularly cognitive impairment. Or sitting pat as income and wealth inequality continues to rise, fracturing communities and social cohesion when these assets are increasingly needed.
Instead, governments in the US and Europe rely on spin and cooperative media mouthpieces to channel citizens’ anxiety and upset into hatred for domestic political enemies (well, plus Putin), grounding out energy that could be used for reform or collective action.
So rather than addressing underlying issues or even applying meaningfully large Band-Aids, officials are increasingly reverting to authoritarianism, such as putting snipers on campuses to intimidate anti-Israel-genocide protestors to harassing or intimidating critics, ranging from Tulsi Gabbard, Richard Medhurst, Sarah Wilkinson, and Scott Ritter even to the comparatively tame Judge Napolitano. And that’s omitting Israel’s assassination of journalists in Gaza and the US refusal to intervene when Gonzalo Lira was charged, jailed and very shortly thereafter died in Ukraine.
Even this humble site was targeted, via Google planning to demonetize posts based on indefensibly inaccurate algo black marks. We stood up to this attack and eventually prevailed when we know of other similarly-situated sites that folded. We hope that our publicizing this abuse, and even more so, Matt Taibbi and Rajiv Sethi taking up our cause, has embarrassed Google into at least double-checking before threatening independent sites.
The breadth and depth of the the failure of what passes for leadership all across the West is so pervasive that most of us have become numbed to it. We first identified the underlying problem, the decline in operational capabilities in 2015, in our work on the Greek bailout crisis. But you don’t have to look hard to find it everywhere, from our geopolitical genius of pushing Russia and China together and speeding the rise of BRICS, to the Boeing and Intel slow motion implosions to Crowdstrike to the Fed not anticipating that high interest rates would whack banks on their underwater commercial real estate portfolios alone, to Europeans not understanding the degree to which their prosperity depended on cheap Russian energy.
This year has seen more and more leaders succumb to unyielding realities. For instance, highly defensive European leaders are shocked that the masses are rebelling against eroding living standards and even (gasp!) against the war in Ukraine by voting in populist parties. Their response too has been crackdowns on dissenters via the press and social media platforms rather than doing the hard work of delivering material concrete benefits to voters.
This is a sobering overview. And while it would be better if we were wrong, we don’t see any relief in sight. And that’s before getting to the real odds of regime change in the US, and we don’t mean the orderly kind.
And it’s not as if things are all that rosy if the US steers clear of serious upheaval. Even if Trump fans are proven correct and he wins and actually does dial down the Ukraine conflict, that would be mainly to allow the US to escalate with China sooner. The Middle East will remain a flashpoint. We have not discussed the potential for financial instability, but an increase in hostilities could easily kick that off.
So what role does this little blog play in this big and legitimately scary world?
We believe that sober reality is the best survival strategy in difficult times. A better grasp of the terrain helps to decide which course is most prudent.
Many of you come here to get a better handle on what is really happening across many fronts, not only out of hunger for information, but a hunger for understanding.
We gave early warnings of the 2007-2008 financial crisis and the officialdom’s inability to face up to its severity. Many readers then said that our work led them to get out of risky investments in time. Later, in the foreclosure crisis, we again provided relentless, granular coverage, helping some save their homes. More recently, we’ve given detailed, ahead-of-the-curve analysis of Brexit, private equity scamming (both of investors and of stakeholders in their companies), the impact of super-low interest rates and how hard it would be to exit them, of Russia’s eventual victory in Ukraine (not that hard a call since Obama concluded the same), and of Israel’s real intent in Gaza and the West Bank, to engage in ethnic cleansing, or failing that, genocide.
We’ve given regular, more mundane advice on how to avoid or navigate through financial and insurance scams and even build local resilience, from regular gardening tips to supporting libraries, both the book and implement-sharing kind. And more recently, readers have repeatedly reported how valuable, even life-saving, our, and in particular Lambert’s, relentless Covid coverage has been.
For such a lean and mean site, we take pride in our long-standing record of being early and accurate,. But we don’t do this alone. This community is essential. Naked Capitalism’s truly global commentariat, both in experience and skills, shares knowledge and ideas intensively, from the merits of voting systems to electrical grid operations to new drugs to home repair to language acquisition tips.
And thanks to your informational and financial support, we keep adding new beats. In a very important vote of confidence, we’ve had new four writers join this year: Rob Urie, George Georogiou, Kevin Kirk, and Vladislav Sotirovic. If you value this informational heavy lifting, please go straight to the Tip Jar and give generously.
Naked Capitalism has long straddled a position few occupy, providing both hot takes and near think tank-level analysis. A few of many recent examples:
Conor Gallagher on Realtor.com’s rent fixing algos, examining the Sahra Wagenknecht party challenge and describing how the US has lost in the Black Sea
Nick Corbishley on a Mexico win against Monsanto corn, Mastercard testing biometric retail payments, and War on Cash pushback
KLG on ultraprocessed food, the war on workers and on peer review
Lambert on pervasive Covid (and now Mpox) fecklessness, such as mask bans, and relentless election coverage, such as Kamala’s coronation and RFK, Jr.’s curveball
Michael Hudson has given us first dibs on his articles. Thomas Neuburger gives regular updates on climate change and Democratic party machinations. Contributors Satyajit Das recently adding well-received culture post to his economic sighting. albrt ponder identity and sociological themes. Yours truly has been sorting the signal out of the noise on the Ukraine and Gaza wars, regularly covering government and business reactions to the baby bust, and does media critiques of breaking business stories.
We’d like to do more. We’d like to do it even better. Imagine how much trouble we could cause if we got our hands on serious money!
Please support our efforts. Give whatever you can, whether it’s $5, $50, or $5,000, via our Tip Jar. Even a small gift helps us meet our fundraising goals. If you can, please give generously, particularly on behalf of loyal readers who are under stress and aren’t able to donate as much as they’d like to.
And if you aren’t able to make a financial contribution, you can still help! More than ever, we depend on all of you to promote Naked Capitalism and bring in more readers. You can help by sending articles, Links, and Water Cooler to potentially receptive friends, family members, and colleagues, by linking to our posts on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media, talking up the site, making comments and sending cute animal photos.
In our accompanying kickoff post, we describe what your donations will fund and tell you when we’ve hit each of these monetary goals. Our first goal is $25,000 for digital infrastructure essentials. That may not sound very sexy, but this is our plumbing. When your plumbing is not working, I bet you miss it! And a big round of applause for Dave, our tech guru!
We particularly like checks! No processor fees! Please make them out to “Aurora Advisors Incorporated,” sent to:
Aurora Advisors Incorporated
PO Box 110105
Brooklyn NY 11211-0105
Be sure to let us know if you have sent a check so we can add your contribution to our fundraiser tally. Please send an e-mail with the subject line, “Check is in the mail” with the $ amount, to yves@nakedcapitalism.com.
You can also use the Tip Jar to donate by credit card, debit card using Clover or PayPal. Please note PayPal allows you to use your regular credit or debit card. If you can stand to give up your frequent flier miles, the next lowest fee option is a debit card via our merchant processor, Clover.
We also want to warn you: as much as we feel very guilty about it, we lack the capacity to thank donors individually. With our thin staffing, we’d have to cut way back on posting to be able to do that. We hope you forgive us for having to give top priority to continuing to generate the content you appreciate so much.
Again, we hope you’ll support our work in ways big and small. You’ve helped us build a community, and with your continued backing, we aspire to make it even better in the coming year.
