August 19, 2011

On the Proper Display of Panic

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Ryan Avent responds to my gloomy take on the economy last night:

As a writer, it’s difficult to know how to approach these situations. Is it time to panic? No, it’s not. Is it time to develop a serious sense of urgency about looming crises, the better to protect against expected pain and insure against the possibility of real disasters? Absolutely. The problem is in trying to convey urgency in an appropriately sober way.

Quite so. I shall try to panic in more sober tones in the future.

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We've never been very good at being conservative.

And usually, that serves us well in doing the ambitious, hard-hitting journalism that you turn to Mother Jones for. But it also means we can't afford to come up short when it comes to scratching together the funds it takes to keep our team firing on all cylinders, and the truth is, we finished our budgeting cycle on June 30 about $100,000 short of our online goal.

This is no time to come up short. It's time to fight like hell, as our namesake would tell us to do, for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme agenda, where facts matter, and where accountability has a chance at the polls and in the press. If you value our reporting and you can right now, please help us dig out of the $100,000 hole we're starting our new budgeting cycle in with an always-needed and always-appreciated donation today.

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