I noticed this blog passed a milestone this morning:
Last year the blog just made 2 million reads. In truth it is still very slightly short of 2.5 million for the current year (the figures on the chart are rounded totals), but with likely reads I am very confident it will exceed that total.
The result is quite surprising. The year began quietly but by April traffic was growing strongly. Then the election gave it a massive boost and it has been very strong ever since. It's a staggering growth in traffic and I admit to being grateful to all who have contributed to it, with the growth in unique reads being a particularly pleasing trend.
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Hearty congrats! It’s a very worthy achievement and just reward for all the work + hours that we know you put into it every day (hopefully not nights!). It isn’t only the content that makes it unique among such blogs but also the interaction, even with trolls.
It struck me that dialogue of this nature is a mixture of supply and demand-side knowledge! Supply in the sense that it trickles down from your wisdom at the top; and demand in that, once disseminated, it then stimulates thought and action from the bottom up. Maybe that’s stretching the metaphor a bit too thin, but hopefully you get my drift.
A big ‘thank you’, anyhow, for your inestimable contribution to achieving the change necessary to bring about a fairer global society. At this particular moment in time it often feels like we’re only at Base Camp, with a mountain to climb ahead. But then an unexpected ray of sunshine peeps through the political storm clouds to restore hope that we can and will make it to the top. You – and all the other progressives like you – provide the much needed oxygen for the journey to succeed.
OK. That’s enough metaphorical musing for a Monday afternoon. Barista – un grande Marocchino per favore!
And mine is medium black Amricano
Just in case one was on offer…
Thanks
Ofc it’s on offer, but I’m afraid you’ll have to accept a rain check. Anytime you’re visiting my neck of the woods it’ll be my treat, con piacere!
Thanks
Congratulations – not just on the success of the blog, but in the process showing that there are still plenty of people out there with liberal, progressive views
I like that perspective, a lot
Indeed they must be mostly liberal progressives.
There can’t possibly be that many trolls who can actually read …..and the pictorial content of your blog is frankly not great.
Time you had a cartoonist ? 🙂
Still we’re none of us perfect.
I have seriously wondered about learning cartooning…
“I have seriously wondered about learning cartooning…”
That’ll be…… instead of sleeping….?
You might be better employed learning delegating 🙂
I can delegate pretty well
But on this blog I doubt much delegating is possible
Apart from weeding out the typos
Hi Richard,
Many thanks for your blog – which I discovered recently. I have enjoyed reading through some of your older posts, educating myself about tax and economics in the process.
Keep up the good work!
Neil
Thanks
Ever day half the reads are from the back catalogue
There are more than 14,000 to chose from
“Every day half the reads are from the back catalogue”
Now THAT I find really interesting.
You are creating a valuable resource AND people are using it.
That should be very gratifying. Well done that man.
Another hearty thank you to Richard. Always remember that the theory you bring forward is alien to many who have had nothing but neo-liberal experience from an early age. It takes time and repeated application of MMT to worldly situations to grasp the language and the concepts when making references to unbelieving friends.
Speaking of which (the back catalogue) I cannot for the life of me find that report you posted on immigration not far back? Can anyone help? I cannot see the wood for the trees so to speak. Sorry.
Search Colin Hines and Jonathan Porritt
Bless you – thanks!
Congratulations Richard. I would like you to know I have learned so much reading your analysis of economic and political events. It has also enabled me to contribute to the discussion with my friends and family on how the current economic system is rigged for the benefit of the few. Also many thanks to the contributors, good and challenging who have help firm up my understanding of the ideas debated on this blog. Thank You.
Thanks for saying so
Given I write a lot of this to work out what I think everything else is a bonus
“Given I write a lot of this to work out what I think everything else is a bonus”
It’s quite surprising sometimes …you write something and reading it back before posting (either snail or e) you realise you know something and think something you thought you didn’t know.
It’s the basis of “Words for Wellbeing”. Can be of great therapeutic value to people suffering depression and other varieties of mental turmoil and distress.
I was fortunate (and honoured) to be around at the launch of this.
https://trioross.wordpress.com/author/trioross/
Financed by the Cumbria Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust as a ‘dragon’s den’ experiment supporting staff initiative suggestions. Carol was not a medical practitioner she was employed on a clerical or administrative role. Lovely lady.
I seriously recommend writing to anyone
And you get better the more you do
Think how bad I was in that case!
I’ve seen you get more and more shares and citations on Facebook too, and on other online platforms that I frequent.
People like Another Angry Voice (who I think is great) often cite your articles and then I’m sure that will drive traffic here. There is more scope to get more attention on FB though, for sure.
In that sense the types of your post that seem to get shared the most on there are posts such as:
– Graph re. Tories have a debt problem not Labour
– We can afford a pay rise for public servants
Simple graphs and concise, distilled arguments go down well on there and in argument in general. There’s nothing like a simple graph to shoot holes in someone’s unsubstantiated rhetoric.
I admit I still do not ‘get’ facebook
And I’m not very graphic
But I’ll think about it
“I admit I still do not ‘get’ facebook
And I’m not very graphic”
We really ARE going to have to find some funding to provide you with some back-up resources.
But that will still not make me anything less than finite
Whilst we’re in this mood, I do often think that there are a lot of people here with whom one could spend a very good evening in the pub, debating the issues that Richard raises. Not always agreeing completely of course! So thanks to all of those who have added to the debate in 2017
As for 2018, can I offer a possible resolution which would be to get out and get active so that we can put some of these great ideas and principles into practice, though I’d admit I often struggle to see how best to do that.
Revolutions start in pubs….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B96qKs4-EI8
Yes. Well…..
It’s a pleasure to take small break from tax returns and all the other crap I’m confronted with to congratulate you on this milestone, thank you again for all the hard work and commitment, and wish you and your family a happy and peaceful Christmas – I was going to say “content” Christmas but 14,000, and counting, blogs somehow doesn’t suggest you’ll ever aspire to be content!
Oh, I don’t know
Life has thrown considerable complications at me in recent years unreported here (and it will remain that way) but it’s not all bad
As I discussed with someone who has faced quite similar issues only this morning, making the best of it is the required approach
I am not happy with the world
But I am not unhappy with life
It’s not a bad place to be
Trust you to have a bloody chart 🙂
For many of us in Scotland, your big input on GERs along with many other tax issues as well as the many great and most important – factual blogs that has enlightened many who have found understanding the tax system sometimes too deep or too boring, you have brought us blogs which was far ore in layman’s terms and interesting.
People across the UK have long stopped believing majority of politicians, media and certain “experts”. You give people a place to come to if we want to know the real facts and to discuss them. Thank you Richard.
Thanks
I appreciate that
Scotland was a big part of my year in 2017 and I enjoyed it