1 Month Anniversary and the Future of nathantankus.substack.com
Thanks So Much For Your Support
Hello reader,
This is a break from our regularly scheduled programming to celebrate one month of publication. I’ve been so, so thrilled with the response. As of writing this I have 2250 free email sign ups and a very substantial number of paid subscribers (I will be keeping this number confidential as it is obviously my income). I, in fact, hit another paid subscriber milestone this morning. I’ve been so totally overwhelmed with the amount of support I’ve gotten over the past month and can fully commit to doing this as a full time job from now on.
I’ve gotten an absurd amount of mainstream press coverage as well. I was on the Bloomberg television show “”What’d You Miss?”. You can hear the audio from their weekly round up podcast here. I was quoted in two Bloomberg articles. One by Luke Kawa and the other by Matt Levine this week, who engaged in detail with my argument for suspending buybacks and dividends during the Coronavirus crisis. I was quoted in Fortune Magazine discussing the Trillion Dollar Platinum Coin. Dave Dayen quoted me in his newsletter for the American Prospect on the accounting gimmick in the CARES Act. John Cassidy cited me in his New Yorker newsletter on Federal Reserve crisis facilities. Last, but not least, Jeff Spross quoted me in The Week.
Most Crazily to me, my proposal for central bank swap lines provided to the IMF made it into former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s letter- along with dozens of former world leaders- to the G20. The substack got its first academic citation by Professor Mehrsa Baradaran in a paper on rethinking financial inclusion. I also got cited in a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Powell by congressman Bill Pascrell Jr. I also got an enormous and overwhelming amount of praise on twitter. I don’t think I captured it all, but here is quite a lot of the most notable praise:
Some nice perspective from @NathanTankus about where we were before the pandemic https://t.co/qf2FOC30Pp
— alexandra scaggs (@alexandrascaggs) March 21, 2020
Can't follow what's happening in monetary policy? Then follow @NathanTankus 👇 https://t.co/vPfhrTWDC9
— David Andolfatto (@dandolfa) March 25, 2020
This is phenomenal, from @NathanTankus, explaining every action the Fed has taken so far to fight this crisis. I'd venture to guess there are less than 5 people on here who know how the monetary system works at the level he does. Must read https://t.co/Nd2IsOp0Ww
— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) March 25, 2020
I'm gonna say it again, but there's nobody writing about the Fed with the level of operational granularity and clarity right now as @NathanTankus. Read Part II in his series to understand the actions the Fed has taken so far to address this crisis. https://t.co/gyIkSqHBRt
— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) March 27, 2020
If you haven't yet, you should read this great series of explainers about the Fed's emergency operations. https://t.co/e7VsK8F74r
— Jon Sindreu (@jonsindreu) March 30, 2020
The Fed is complex and opaque. @NathanTankus is straightforward and clear. His recent work breaking down the Fed's operations is essential. https://t.co/7PItX70JqO
— Zachary D. Carter (@zachdcarter) March 30, 2020
https://twitter.com/DavidpStein/status/1245434457701507072
"What has happened is a collapse in demand and thus income for small businesses. Piling on debt (and reducing financial net worth) is better than total collapse but..."https://t.co/lfCwwZJzkH
— Matthew C. Klein (@M_C_Klein) April 2, 2020
<-- sharp analysis from @NathanTankus
A special note that Bharat was subsequently appointed to the Oversight Council of the CARES act.
Highly recommend this series of posts. https://t.co/2tlIR36gp1
— Bharat Ramamurti (@BharatRamamurti) April 5, 2020
Finally got around to reading @NathanTankus's 3 posts on Fed crisis actions so far. Excellent, excellent stuff. If you want to 'get' the Fed & underlying mechanics--and most ppl don't--all 3 are must reads.https://t.co/kYD6Hn4Jzohttps://t.co/8QzUGRBpUKhttps://t.co/uou1izxx6E
— Dow (@mark_dow) April 6, 2020
I did miss it. Another great read! https://t.co/annFbaG6B9
— Stephanie Kelton (@StephanieKelton) April 8, 2020
Waiting for @pearkes or @NathanTankus to explain all this new Fed stuff.
— Conor Sen (@conorsen) April 9, 2020
https://twitter.com/Chris_arnade/status/1249307817078595584
Another great note from @NathanTankus on the Fed's crisis actions so far: "It is becoming a running theme in my coverage here that the Fed’s announcements are both a great leap forward for them but, at the same time, far too little." https://t.co/xQwG7Y2gWq
— Myles Udland (@MylesUdland) April 12, 2020
This is awesome. @NathanTankus has started a series on how monetary policy actually works. Even if you disagree with everything the Fed has done, it's useful to understand the actual operations. https://t.co/yUDk1dUTjE
— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) April 14, 2020
Super helpful https://t.co/pmU5U6X8Te
— Peter Armstrong (@armstrongcbc) April 14, 2020
Nathan strutting his stuff is one of the highlights of this abhorrent existence.
— Luke Kawa (@LJKawa) April 17, 2020
He's like the Dos Equis guy, but for things that actually matter. https://t.co/gxp3JWcf4s
Folks, Nathan is fantastic. I've been substituting, piece by piece, my subscriptions out of NYT, WSJ, and swapping in more more precise info.
— Adam Townsend (@adamscrabble) April 17, 2020
Nathan is in it https://t.co/1HP6KSbTzQ
One of the few bright spots in a godawful media environment is Substack. I subscribe to a bunch of newsletters on it - highly recommend @dwdavison and @NathanTankus - and there's no better model for the kind of detailed analysis I'm looking for.
— Patrick Wyman (@Patrick_Wyman) April 17, 2020
Back in the Blogging Era, now and again a new longform-ish econ blogger would arrive on the scene and we'd all be like "holy crap this is awesome!". That happened with @rortybomb around the GFC. This cycle's version of that is @NathanTankus's newsletter https://t.co/ihpDshK1ow
— Cardiff Garcia (@CardiffGarcia) April 17, 2020
Too kind to me, the level of sophistication has jumped immensely in the past decade, which makes what Nathan is pulling off even more impressive.
— Mike Konczal (@rortybomb) April 17, 2020
This level of media coverage and praise is extremely rare. Many journalists would kill to have this much attention and praise for their work in a year- perhaps multiple years- and I’ve received it in a month. Clearly there are a lot of people out there who think what I’m doing is worthwhile and want me to be able to continue doing it. I’ll be forever grateful for that, whatever happens next. In order to ensure that I can produce consistent posts for this substack, I’m going to slow down to 3 posts a week. 2 of those posts will remain free, while 1 post will be a premium post which is only accessible through a paid subscription. This rate also allows me to devote more time to each post, and to get posts edited by others.
If paid substack subscriptions begin to bring in revenue that is substantially beyond a living income, I will increase the number of posts by paying coauthors or guest contributors with similar perspectives to my own to write with me and/or for me. Currently, I think my schedule will be to continue the #MonetaryPolicy101 series on Tuesday, have another free post on Thursday and then post premium posts on Saturday. In addition to this 3 post schedule, I will be writing things for external publications which I will post here and when a surprise announcement happens, I’ll rush coverage of it. It is only your support here that makes regular writing for external publications possible and so I encourage readers to think of this as part of what they’re getting when they take out a paid subscription to the substack.
I can’t say enough how grateful I am to all the support I have received. Any reader is a wonderful thing and those of you who promoted the substack have been immensely valuable, whether you had a paid subscription or not. That being said, paid subscribers are what have let me continue this as a full time job. If paid subscribers keep on coming in the way they have been, this will be a full time living income in 6 weeks. If you can take out a paid subscription, please do.