A Price War Has Sent Oil Prices Plummeting

The latest coronavirus obsession is the collapse of crude oil prices over the past couple of weeks:

The nickel version of this story is that oil prices started declining in February due to fears of lower demand caused by the coronavirus outbreak. OPEC tried to cut a deal with Russia to reduce output all around, but Russia balked. Saudi Arabia then decided to bring out its big guns, lowering prices immediately by about $7 per barrel and announcing that it would increase output in order to take share away from Russia. At that point the decline turned into a rout, with the price of WTI crude collapsing to $28 as I write this. Needless to say, there’s no telling where it will be when you read this.

Anyway, just another thing to keep your eye on. On the bright side, this certainly means we’re not going to have a recession based on a spike in oil prices.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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