We hope you are as excited as we are that this site is fit and feisty at nineteen years! It’s been a very busy time!
There are many many many to thank over these years. We were lucky enough to have a tech friend, Ed Wright, suggest that I start posting in December 2006. I took that up because it was clear then that most of the business press was not on top of looming signs of trouble in the credit markets, which a finance-literate person could detect via careful reading of the Financial Times and Bloomberg. Mark Thoma of Economist’s View, an important aggregator then, was not just encouraging but also helped us get some notice early on via linking to some of our posts. But this was in the heyday of a vibrant econoblogosphere, where many experts and commentators like Nouriel Roubini, Simon Johnson, James Kwak, Barry Ritholtz, Paul Krugman, Felix Salmon, Michael Shedlock, Tanta, Independent Accountant, Steve Waldman and Epicurean Dealmaker held forth. And just when it looked like we were falling short on the reader targets we had set to justify continuing to publish, yet another wheel fell off the financial system, with the silver lining of a boost in our traffic.
Sadly, there has been no shortage of incompetence and chicanery over these years. A partial list: Half-hearted post crisis reforms, which helped grease more increases in an already destructive level of inequality. Foreclosure and chain of title abuses. The Cyprus banking crisis, which we only much later realized was an early salvo against Russia. CalPERS. Private equity fee and reporting abuses, with our early warning that the strategy was not earning enough to compensate limited partners for its risks borne out. The Greek bailout crisis. The half-hearted efforts to combat climate change. Covid. And now the Trump whirlwind.
We’ve also been fortunate to have attracted many very skilled and often witty contributors, such as Ed Harrison, Marshall Auerback, Richard Smith, Andrew Dittmer, Nathan Tankus, Matt Stoller, Philip Pilkington, Gonzalo Lira, Satyajit Das, Rob Urie, IM Doc, and Michael Hudson, as well as terrific regular writers like Jerri-Lynn Scofield, Conor, KLG, and of course the much esteemed Lambert. And after many years of hair-tearing, we now have a stable tech platform thanks to the unobtrusive vigilance of our maven Dave.
But the big reason we have carried on with such dedication is our wonderful readership, confirmed every day through comments, e-mails, and (critically) financial support. We would not be here without you. And the high caliber of the comments section depends on the wrangling of moderators Katiebird and Semperloquitur. That is confirmed by our good fortune in attracting impressive new writers to fill Lambert’s yellow waders: Haig, Nat, and Curro, with KLG and Semperloquitur also stepping up to do double duty. They’ve said the reason they were keen to contribute and continue to enjoy the experience is the keen interest and regularly highly informed views of our truly global and worldly commentariat.
So wishing all of you a fun and festive holiday season and a wonderful 2026!
