Important Changes at Liberty Blitzkrieg

From time to time, I think it’s necessary and healthy to take a step back and reflect on what you’re doing and why. I recently did that with regard to my work and website.

When I quit my job on Wall Street nearly a decade ago, I had no idea how life would unfold. I walked away from a highly paid position to pursue some unknown future, a simultaneously exciting and terrifying decision. I was a single guy living in NYC back then, with no pressing obligations to anyone other than myself. I’m now married with three kids in Colorado.

I decided to leave financial services upon becoming disgusted by industry practices and the unconscionable public betrayal perpetrated by the U.S. government and Federal Reserve via its massive bailout of the few at the expense of the many. In short, the most powerful players in our society sacrificed the long-term health of the U.S economy and the nation’s overall social cohesion to save a corrupt and unethical industry and reward the very people responsible for the calamity. We don’t have a meritocracy or competitive free markets, we have a rigged system based on corruption and cronyism where the most dangerous and destructive amongst us consistently fail upward.

The Wall Street bailout, including the failure to prosecute bank executives for the extreme fraud of the pre-crisis period and subsequent economic catastrophe, was the most formative event of my life. It forced me to confront the reality of the sort of country and economy I was living in, and what I saw wasn’t pretty. Since I could never look at the world the same way again, I couldn’t live my life the same way either.

Upon leaving the financial services industry, I continued to share my thoughts about markets and the world around me. First through email and later via my blog, Liberty Blitzkrieg. Back then, I was naive and filled with the passion of a man who felt he could play a small role in preventing the country from turning to ruin. I also often felt isolated when discussing things that were only being talked about on the fringes.

Taking stock of the last several years, I have very mixed feeling about how things have played out. On the one hand, populism is ascendant across the political spectrum as people have finally woken up to how completely swindled they’ve been for so long. This is an important first step, because if you remain asleep to severe systemic problems you’ll obviously never address them. On the other hand, though outrage and activism have increased to a meaningful level, victories for the public have been few and far between and the dominant paradigm continues to pretty much do whatever it wants. But this is going to change.

As I’ve been writing a lot about lately, things are finally coming to a head on a variety of fronts. As the economic cycle collides with the political cycle, the world paradigm will change completely. I view my role in this final chapter as some combination of social commentator, guide and analyst. I hope to help people navigate and make some sense of the unavoidable chaos and opportunity that can arise from such a monumental shift, while also staying sane and conscious. As we’ve seen since Trump was elected, it’s easy to snap mentally when things change so abruptly. This is the worst thing that can happen in such times, for yourself and for those around you.

As I’ve grown and matured as a person and content creator, I’ve found it necessary to change some aspects of the work I do from time to time. When I first started blogging, I did what many people with websites do. I wrote multiple blog posts a day and populated the site with ads, including Google ads. I fell into the trap that many bloggers fall into, chasing clicks and becoming obsessed with traffic. This diluted my content over time, and after a few years I realized I wasn’t as proud of my work as I should be. In many cases, I had begun to substitute quantity for quality. I had left Wall Street to pursue something more meaningful, but here I was chasing clicks on the internet. Once again, I knew something had to change.

In 2017, I started to make some necessary changes. First, I decided to write less often to provide more thoughtful and in depth commentary. Second, I began my transition from earning revenue from click ads to a reader supported model. As a part of that strategy, I launched a Patreon page and provided options to donate via PayPal, check/cash and Bitcoin.

When I did all that, I had hoped to be at $1,000 per month in donations prior to removing Google ads, but unfortunately that didn’t happen. Nevertheless, the time has come to take a giant leap of faith and remove all ads from my site. Ads bring a lot of baggage to content creators, not to mention the fact it feels wrong getting paid from one of the tech giants I so frequently criticize (in this case Google). I think such a model is unhealthy for me personally, as well as for content creators in general.

So as of February 2019 Liberty Blitzkrieg is 100% ad free. I’ve also restructured my Patreon page to include tiers for the first time. One thing I’ve noticed over the years, is I get far too many emails and message requests to respond thoughtfully to everyone. As such, I’ve decided to create a support tier of $10 per month, which comes with a pledge to offer engagement and respond to your messages as sign of appreciation for consistent support.

I’ve also decided to offer a private chat option. This is for people who want to pick my brain in detail about any of the topics I write about. Although I’m already doing this in limited cases, I’ve decided to open it up publicly. While time-consuming, it’s a good way to connect with interesting people and I’ve even made some friends as a result. If this is something that interests you, contact me here.

Finally, once things settle down with our newborn, I plan to add video to my suite of content. I’ll probably just start by experimenting with Periscope on Twitter, so look out for updates in the months ahead.

There’s no longer any revenue coming in for my work other than voluntary reader donations. This is the way I think it needs to be going forward, but to make this a successful, sustainable thing I’m going to need your support. If you’ve donated in the past, thank you. If you haven’t, but have appreciated my work over the years, this is the time to consider becoming a more intimate and involved part of what I’m trying to do here.

Here’s how you can support my work:

You can become a Patron.

You can visit the Support Page to donate via PayPal, or send cash/check.

You can donate via Bitcoin:

35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G

Private Chat: This is new. I’m offering private conversations to those who want to dig deeper into the topics I cover. If interested, contact me here.

Thank you for your consideration and generosity,
Michael Krieger

Like this post?
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G


Follow me on Twitter.

16 thoughts on “Important Changes at Liberty Blitzkrieg”

    • Hi Ralph, I prefer to keep my written content public for all to read, but down the road once I get more comfortable with video, I may do some exclusive Q&A chats using that medium. I want to take a wait and see approach and see if readers are willing to step up. If not, then yeah, I may have to focus more time on those people willing to contribute.

  1. Yeah, it’s the numbers… if 1,000 folks gave $1/mo, you’d be getting somewhere. Just look at the 250k who support Bernie, to the tune of $27 average.

    Reply
  2. Hi Michael,

    I support your move to no ads. I also appreciate you maintaining that “low tech option” of “sending a check”.
    You provide a very valuable non partisan, unvarnished look at the American landscape, and I thank ye for it.

    Reply
  3. Keep doing your thing, Michael. I just passed a certification test and once I get a new gig will be in a better position to donate soon. I also plan to do this for Corbett Report and maybe a few smaller outlets that have been informative.

    I hope people give at least a little support to sites where they spend a lot of time, even if things aren’t nearly as great out there as the MSM claims. I spent my last year or two coming out the other side of a divorce/relocation/career change. It certainly wasn’t fun and was akin to steering an aircraft carrier to a much different heading, but now that it’s nearly over I’m glad it happened. Anyway, thanks for your effort!

    Reply
  4. This is a great direction to take, Mike.

    Once your long time readers get adjusted to the new and improved LB, it will work out fine.

    No need to be “disappointed”.

    ..

    Reply
  5. Done. I’ve gleaned so much from you over years (both information and inspiration), and when I realized I could spent $200 on a Ralph Lauren jacket on a whim, the least I could was to donate something to one of the few bastions of real news!

    Reply
  6. Michael, is there a small circle of writers that you could collaborate with and cross link to each others work – this would add value for the readers with very little work.
    Also, have you checked out bitcoin lightning network. You can now do micro payments with almost no fees. If you set this up, I promise to use it…

    Reply
  7. Greetings Michael;
    I can understand your concerns…The time and the expense of operating a Blog like yours…
    And I been following your postings for several years now, even though they’ve been rather sporadic at times…
    “”BUT”” with the plethora of information and opinions floating around
    on the internet, it would be imbecilic of me to pay for someone else’s opinion …
    To me it’s really NOT a remunerable service…
    Suffice to say, I don’t pay for newspapers or magazines any more, nor even watch local TV news, with all the crime & slanted fake news ..
    You might try contacting JSMineset.com, and see how it turned out for them….
    They went to a $129/yr closed fee based blog, but after a short period of time, it seemed that nearly all the closed information was back on their free blog again…
    Good luck with your venture…
    Just don’t count me in the mulched group…
    Take Care,
    BadaBing

    Reply
    • Thanks for your comment, it explains so much of why I’m making this shift.

      First, nobody blogs on the internet with the idea of making a lot of money. I know what you should do to make a lot of money because I did it and did it at a very young age and could pretty easily find a new more traditional job, make a boatload of money, and you’d never hear from me again. But that’s not what I want to do.

      I started writing like this because I felt I had unique knowledge to share and felt the need and desire to share it. All of my work for seven years has been completely free to everyone. I had never walled off any content. I never even made donations widely available until 2017 when I realized content creators being beholden to Google ads for what little revenue they make is a bad idea.

      So I decided to start the shift to reader supported commentary since that’s the only way content creators can be truly empowered and independent in the long run while earning some money from appreciative readers.

      Finally, you write “it would be imbecilic of me to pay for some else’s opinion.” Interesting way of putting it. After pouring out time and effort entirely free for so many years I’m asking people to consider supporting my work. Unfortunately, most people do feel like you, but plenty of others do not.

      What I realized is spending time communicating and interacting with people like you is a waste of time and I’m not going to do it any longer. Even if it’s a small group of people who support, I am going to spend more of my time with them. It’s not about the money, it’s more about the fact I’ve realized those who are willing to support are the ones I want to create community and friendships around, versus people who think like you.

      Thanks for making me even more confident in my decision.

  8. I sense a slightly unrealized or unseen aspect with the results you are hoping to generate, and it resides in people’s hollowed-out economic situation. Everyone is debt saturated. In fact, it’s beyond that. We are now all into debt exhaustion. I’ve not renewed my subscriptions to Cooks Illustrated, or to Milk Street, or to Martha Stewart. And there is not room to sub-in even a small ‘something else.’ I own a retail business. Revenues are dropping by double-digits monthly.

    Best wishes in your new endeavor,

    An occasional reader,
    Alex

    Reply
  9. Michael,
    I’ve read your postings on and off over the years, and they’ve usually resonated with me. Our backgrounds seem to be similar in ways, but I’m older than you. I checked out from the money-grab in 2001 because of somewhat similar experiences.

    I think that one of the reasons you’re seeing less remuneration for your good work is the utter complacency in the financial markets, which is all there is left of our economy. No one doubts the fed’s ability to levitate markets after the last few years. Why fight it?

    However, eventually this complacency will revert back to fear and anger at the rigged markets. Then, I believe your vision and views will resonate much more with most people. You will be right! and that’s what people pay for.

    Look back at the 2000 bubble. Value managers such as J. Robertson etc. hung it up, and Buffett’s Berkshire was down almost 50% when SPX was going vertical. This turned out to be the best time to be a value investor, but it seemed like the worst. I think the same can be said about your blog postings. Fundamental truths will prevail in the end. When they’re most obvious and stark from a rational perspective, no one believes in them. It’s only after they assert themselves in an emotional way, when the average person will pay attention.

    So I think your blog postings will be considered much more valuable when the fundamental truths that you write about become apparent to all.

    Keep up the good work.

    -Steve Olson

    Reply

Leave a Reply