I have joined Patreon. Please support me there

The future of the financial blogosphere

For about a week now, I have been writing posts on a website called Patreon. And I want to explain what I am doing and how you can help me.

Here’s the deal: Credit Writedowns has been in business for a little over 10 years now. I launched the site during the financial crisis when there was a great need for independent analysis of our global financial system. Most people were taken by surprise by the length and severity of the crisis. And they wanted to hear independent voices who could tell them what was really happening.

But as the crisis has faded, people have turned away from finance and very few independent voices remain. Meanwhile the rest of the financial internet is disappearing behind paywalls, leaving very few independent voices out there to help people navigate the risks of our turbulent financial system.

The future of the global economy

I believe another economic downturn will be upon us in the next year or two. And likely, this will mean a financial crisis. The question that the Italian crisis presents is which causes which; do we get a financial crisis that creates an economic downturn or vice versa?

I strongly feel that we still need to hear well-informed views of what’s happening in the world of economics and finance. And I intend to be one of those voices for as long as I can.

You are the people who give me the freedom to develop a finance site independent of a particular economic school of thought and a political philosophy.

What’s Patreon?

The economics professor Steve Keen turned me onto Patreon. That’s where all hos content is these days. And he’s a big fan of the site.

Patreon describes itself this way:

In 2013, YouTube musician Jack Conte was looking for a solution to his problem: millions of people loved his videos, but only hundreds of dollars were hitting his bank account. This didn’t add up, so he drafted up an idea (hey, we’re Patreon) and brought it to his college roommate Sam Yam, now co-founder of Patreon. Now it’s 2018, and Patreon is the solution to this same problem for over 100k creators.

So basically, it’s a way for independent voices to fund themselves. It’s a little like a Gofundme campaign. But it’s  more than that because it is a community that helps sustain ongoing independent creativity without ads. I love the idea. And so I have signed onto it.

Now I need your financial support to keep the bulk of my content public. While I am now also posting behind a paywall at Patreon, I intend to keep most of my content public. Eventually posts will migrate back over to Credit Writedowns. But most of the good stuff is going to start on Patreon.

My goals for the money you provide

First and foremost, my goal is to pay for the infrastructure behind Credit Writedowns like the server costs, the domain registration and all of that nitty gritty. Those costs add up.

• Hosting. I need a robust hosting environment to the site never crash es even when traffic spikes.
• MailChimp. This is the email service I use to email posts to the subscription list, daily or weekly. This fee grows as the email list grows.
• Ongoing web development. It’s a website, so there are always upsetting glitches coming out of nowhere — too many in my view. And occasionally, I want to add a new site feature. For example, I would like to make Credit Writedowns more accessible via a mobile app. And I have web developers at the ready to do this.

But I also want to take a ‘salary’ that allows me to spend more time writing. If I am successful in making Patreon work with your support, I can spend all of my time writing, creating content, answering your questions and creating a community just as this next economic crisis forms.

My stretch goals

To take Credit Writedowns to the next level, I would like to do things like:

• Start a daily or even a weekly podcast
• Make vidcast interviews
• Hire an additional full-time employee

That’s my pitch. Here’s what you get!

And so for supporting me, you will get access to:

• Some of the best macro and market analysis out there — and before it is posted publicly on Credit Writedowns
• Patreon-specific content (that I dare not publish publicly) with my opinion about markets, monetary policy, fiscal policy, you name it
• Ad-free access to Credit Writedowns
• The ability to comment both here at Patreon and on Credit Writedowns and shape the topics I discuss
• The satisfaction that you are helping to maintain a free, open and informative Internet

So that’s my first official pitch. follow this link to become a patron.

Thanks for your support.

Edward

P.S. – I have just started a series of posts on the re-emergence of the European Sovereign Debt Crisis at Patreon. I think there will be a lot more action to come.