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BAGGING ON THE BAILOUT….Atrios is annoyed:

If we remember way back to about 2-3 weeks ago, Hank Paulson was promising that there would be NO MORE BAILOUTS. Then, suddenly, we needed a giant BAILOUT RIGHT NOW. The media typically responded by using the Dow as a proxy for the economy/magnitude of the crisis in order to help hype the necessity of a massive bailout. And since the bailout passed, the Dow has tanked.

OK, point taken, but there’s a big dollop of unfairness here. It’s not as if Paulson and Bernanke just changed their minds for no reason, after all, or that a systemic bailout was a dumb response, or that the Dow is meaningless. Remember the sequence of events here.

Three weeks ago Paulson and Bernanke announced that they wouldn’t bail out Lehman Brothers. Maybe that was a risk worth taking, maybe it wasn’t, but in any case it didn’t pan out. In fact, it was a disaster. So unless they wanted to sit and watch the U.S. financial system melt down completely, P&B didn’t have any choice but to change their minds. Better that than to stubbornly cling to their free market principles no matter what the consequences, right? And while the Dow may not be a great proxy for the entire economy, the credit markets really are in big trouble and the Dow reflects that. What’s more, the S&P 500 reflects it even better, and it’s fallen even further than the Dow. Finally, today’s drop is almost certainly a reaction to European problems and the inability of the EU to offer a coordinated response, not a reaction to the Paulson plan.

Now, the Paulson plan may turn out to be bad policy. Plenty of economists think a pure recapitalization scheme would be a better bet. But the mere fact that P&B responded to events and offered up a systemic plan after a solid year of dike-plugging efforts and a final scary-as-hell week hardly counts against them.

And as long as we’re on the subject, here’s another question: is the problem with the credit markets fear or is it bank capitalization? If the problem really is capitalization, then it’s not fear that’s keeping banks from making loans. The problem is that they just don’t have the money. And yet plenty of economists who think capitalization is the fundamental problem also talk as though fear is really the driving force behind the panic. Which is it?

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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