What the Theranos trial says about the blurred lines between visionaries and frauds. Copyright 2023 Click2Houston.com is managed by Graham Digital and published by Graham Media Group, a division of Graham Holdings. [16] McLean resides in Chicago with her children. As for Pelosi, she doesnt want to see companies backed by venture capital excluded from federal relief, given her Silicon Valley constituents. Months into the outbreak, no one really knows how well many of the screening tests work, and experts at top medical centers say it is time to do the studies to find out. Bethany McLean is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and the author of "Saudi America: The Truth About Fracking and How It's Changing the World." The Power Law Venture Capital and the . Sign up for our daily Hive newsletter and never miss a story. Waters, in her letter, argues for placing even more strings on the money taken by private-equity-backed companies. David Wallace Wells writes that by one estimate, 100,000 Americans could die each yearfrom the coronavirus. Investors in the equity of these companies have already seen the value of their holdings decimated. She co-authored a book on the 2008 financial crisis titled All the Devils Are Here. (And not all private-equity firms care equally about all of the programs.) Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more. The immunobiologist Akiko Iwasakiwrites that new vaccines, particular those delivered through the nose, may be part of the answer. Elizabeth Holmes Was Found Guilty, But Was She Fundamentally - Forbes By now, it should be abundantly clear that the current shale oil business model does not work even for the very best companies in the industry, the investment firm SailingStone Capital Partners explained in a recent note. On the other hand, Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and powerful Representative Maxine Waters, have weighed in loudlyon the industrys behalf. But that didnt seem to matter, because low interest rates facilitated private equity in another way. North Dakota Coronavirus Map and Case Count - The New York Times Bethany McLean - The New York Times (Many of the companies owned by mammoth private-equity firms like Blackstone are too big on their own to qualify for this bucket of money.). Hours COVID-19 Origins: Investigating a "Complex and Grave Situation" Inside a Wuhan Lab. Looking for more? And why not? FILE - In this Friday, June 12, 2020 file photo, a nurse uses a swab to perform a coronavirus test in Salt Lake City. How exactly did the alleged illegal activity go down? Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. This week, Ms. McLean begins promoting her new book, "All the Devils are Here," about the current financial crisis. Private-equity managers won the financial crisis, as Bloomberg put it last fall. Bethany McLean - Operations Manager - Smithfield Foods - LinkedIn James Glassman says his seven-year-old prediction that the Dow Jones industrial average will rise to 36,000 wasn't wrong, just early. Regarding another ongoing Covid danger, that of reinfections, a virologist sets the record straight: There has yet to be a variant that negates the benefits of vaccines.. NEW YORK Business writers Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera are collaborating on a critical take of the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic. Exclusive: Inside the S--tshow That Was the Trump-Biden Transition. The Wuhan Institute of Virology, the cutting-edge . But among those angling for a federal handout is one of the wealthiest sectors of the American economy: private equity. More than 100,000 people already have died in this country from the virus. But they wont fix its fundamental problem with profitability. Workers monitoring a hydraulic fracturing operation near Wink, Texas. Its essential that we do the same today. Thanks to all the cheap money made available by the Fed, companies owned by private-equity firms could simply refinance their debts at lower rates, thereby getting a fresh lease on life. Now, it has been shut off. If private equity suffers, the blow will reverberate throughout the entire economy. Yet an exemption for the private-equity industry did not make its way into the CARES Act; according to Bloomberg, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is trying to pass a $250 billion boost to the PPPwithout provisions opening it to private-equity-backed companies. One of the key principles behind private equity is that increased leverageaka more debtcan make a business function more efficiently. Coronavirus outbreaks were reported by the Merced County Department of Public Health at New Bethany Residential Care retirement home in Los Banos and Dutch Bros Coffee. How Screwed Are Donald Trump and His Adult Children, and Other Questions You Might Have About the Staggering Fraud Lawsuit Against Them. Private equity has made multibillionaires of executives like Blackstones Steve Schwarzman (net worth: $17.5 billion) and Apollos Leon Black ($7.5 billion). Some of it may be on bank balance sheets. Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. 2023 Cond Nast. on March 2.Read more about the C.D.C . Previous assignments include editor-at-large, columnist for Fortune, and a contributor to Slate . [9], In September 2018, she published Saudi America: The Truth about Fracking and How It's Changing the World which examined the "fracking revolution" and U.S. energy independence. Bethany McLean, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, is the author of "Saudi America: The Truth About Fracking and How It's Changing the World." The Times is committed to publishing a. Tens of thousands of Texans are being laid off in the Permian Basin and other parts of the state, and the whole industry is bracing for worse. McLean is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and co-author of the Enron book The Smartest Guys in the Room. The technology of fracking in shale rock - particularly in the Permian Basin in Texas - has transformed America into the world's top producer of both oil and natural gas. David Wallace Wells writes that by one estimate. Thats because one big source of funding didnt dry up: private equity. The industrys boosters argue that technological gains, such as drilling ever bigger wells, and clustering wells more tightly together to reduce the cost of moving equipment, eventually would lead to a gusher of profits. The title and release date have not yet been determined. The fracking boom that drove a decade of record U.S. oil and gas production was never really profitable to begin with. Bethany McLean - Contributing Editor - Vanity Fair | LinkedIn Music: Mercurias Meet Victor Rice, Carregar (Instrumental), courtesy of Total Running Time. All thats left to tally is the damage. The problem is, existing rules at the Small Business Administration, which is overseeing the program, have been widely interpretedas excludingloaning money to most mom-and-pop businesses that are controlled by large parent companiesincluding private-equity firms. 500 energy sector fell 20 percent, marking the sectors largest drop on record. . Well continue to work with the administration and Congress to request that federal programs support all businesses, regardless of ownership structure, and their workers, says the AICs CEO, Drew Maloney. The half decade from 2013 to 2018 saw the most private-equity deals over any five-year period in American history. Bethany Mclean - KPRC Actually, no. Its thanks to those who are able to contribute that were able to make the podcast free for anyone to listen to. The industrys lack of profits wasnt exactly a secret. In September 2015, she published Shaky Ground: The Strange Saga of the U.S. Mortgage Giants which examines the governance and financial situation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac seven years after the 2008 financial crisis. Nocera is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion and co-author of Indentured, about the NCAA. So private equity is pushing to waive those rules, arguing that small firms should not be penalized for having been bought out by big investors. The Wuhan Institute of Virology, the cutting-edge . The basic reason is that the amount of oil coming out of a fracked well declines steeply after the first year more than 50 percent in year two. 2023 Cond Nast. The title and release date have not yet been determined. Latest trends. Jack Ewings Faster, Higher, Farther is more than the story of a scandal. Portfolio, a Penguin Random House imprint, announced Wednesday that the two had reached an agreement for a news-breaking, character-driven narrative revealing the forces that rendered critical American institutions ill-equipped to cope with the deadliest pandemic since the 1918 Spanish flu and the economic consequences of that failure.. How will the virus continue to change? The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We really need Trump to do something or hes going to lose all the energy states in this election, Mr. Sheffield told CNBC in late March. COVID-19 Origins: Investigating a "Complex and Grave Situation" Inside a Wuhan Lab. The industry also quietly helps itself to yet more money by having portfolio companies pay fees for consulting and financing services provided by, of course, their private-equity backers. Bethany McLean | Chicago Booth Review A hydraulic fracturing site in Denton, Texas. According to Dan Rasmussen, the founder of Verdad Advisers, private-equity firms typically double the amount of debt relative to profits on a companys balance sheet. Energy independence was a fever dream, fed by cheap debt and frothy capital markets. 71 members of Sacramento, California church have coronavirus | The The big banks emerged from the financial crisis victorious, but also subject to a host of new regulations designed to reduce leverage and stabilize the economy. He and McLean previously worked together on All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis, about the 2008 market crash. Nursing home COVID-19 outbreak reported in Merced County, CA | Merced Confirmed case data are from the Department of Public Health's communicable disease surveillance database. McLean graduated from Hibbing High School in 1988. The active outbreak list is intended to inform the public of the current COVID-19 outbreaks in Los Angeles County. Thats because some of the major investors in private-equity funds are public pension plans; at Blackstone, roughly one-third of the firms money comes from retirement plans set up to provide for over 30 million working-class Americans, according to someone with knowledge of its portfolio. All the Devils Are Here - Wikipedia So why should they be permitted to raid the federal Treasury in a time of crisis? And North American oil and gas drillers have almost $100 billion of debt that is set to mature in the next four years. Because rules for access to this money werent specified in the CARES Act, as ILPA notes, the executive branch will have a fair amount of discretion over who gets access to the moneyand private-equity firms want to take full advantage of that opening. Her two books are the The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing. Was Tiffany involved? She is also a columnist at Yahoo Finance and a contributor to CNBC. Almost everything thats happened since 2008 has tilted in their favor. Has its bubble finally burst? He and McLean previously worked together on All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis, about the 2008 market crash. The industrys $1.5 trillion in cash on hand is also the highest on recordand more than double what it was five years ago, according to Preqin. All we know for sure is that fracking company executives and private equity financiers have made a fortune by touting the myth of energy independence and they wont be the ones who have to pick up the pieces., Bethany McLean, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, is the author of Saudi America: The Truth About Fracking and How Its Changing the World.. If you need help with the Public File, call (713) 778-4745. In May 2008, she married attorney Sean Berkowitz, the former Director of the United States Department of Justice Enron Task Force. Fracking, they said, was just manufacturing, in which process and human intelligence could reduce costs and conquer geology. sure to go down in history as one of the wildest business stories ever. Check out the full Hot & Bothered archive here. NEW YORK (AP) Business writers Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera are collaborating on a critical take of the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic. CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) - McLean County Health, IL [12], McLean married Chris Wilford in 2000 and divorced in 2006. According to the CARES Act, companies can only receive loans from the Small Business Administration if they commit to preserving jobs. Is there any chance this could lead to prison time? This week, Kate and Daniel talk to Bethany McLean, author most recently of Saudi America: The Truth about Fracking and How It's Changing the World as well as the bestselling The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron, with Peter Elkind. The fracking boom that drove a decade of record U.S. oil and gas production was never really profitable to begin with. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Rasmussen points out that after the financial crisis in 2008, the Federal Reserve set a limit on the amount of debt it considered prudent. Paying members will get access to perks like a monthly happy hour with Kate, Daniel, and friends, a free ebook of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal by Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Thea Riofrancos, and much more. Not only should taxpayer funds not be used to pay management or consulting firms, she says, but companies that take the money should also, for instance, be required to include workers on their corporate boards and gradually increase their minimum wage to at least $15 an hour. Investors were willing to do this only as long as oil prices, which are not under Americas control, were high and when they believed that one day, profits would materialize. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Pension funds that have poured money into private equity firms may take a hit soon, too. Months into the outbreak, no one really knows how well many of the screening tests work, and experts at top medical centers say it is time to do the studies to find out. The typical fee structure in private equity is the so-called 2 and 20, which means that a fund collects a fee of 2% of the total assets it manages, as well as 20% of any gains on its investments after a certain return is achieved. A deal, and higher oil prices, might help the industry. "Dow 36,000" co-authors stand by book's premise. If you like the episode and want to hear more, sign up as a monthly member at patreon.com/hotbotheredclimate today. But there are ways to make it work better. If you need help with the Public File, call 540-512-1558. We asked three experts two immunologists and an epidemiologist to weigh in on this and some of the hundreds of other, Thats a difficult question to answer definitely, writes the Opinion columnist Zeynep Tufekci, because of the lack of. Otherwise, the ILPA warned in a previous letter, there would be significant harm not only to employees that see their hours reduced or jobs eliminated, but also significantly reduced returns to the institutions providing retirement security through pensions, insurance policies and other investments that serve hundreds of thousands of Americans. To make matters worse, ILPA added, provisions in many private-equity investments allow private-equity firms to make additional capital calls when times are tough. 500 energy sector fell, questions weve gathered from readers recently, adequate research and support for sufferers, according to the law firm Haynes and Boone. Whats more, the Milken Institute reported, even by mid-2018, private equity owned more companies than the number of businesses listed on all of the U.S. stock exchanges combined, and have accounted for a more significant source of financing than initial public offerings in many recent years. By Bess Levin . Which explains why ILPA wrote to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell last week, arguing that companies backed by private equity should be allowed to access the relief funds provided in the CARES Act. There are several pots of federal money that the private-equity industry is lobbying to access. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. [4], In 2005, McLean got into a spat with then-CEO of Overstock.com Patrick M. Byrne after she wrote a negative article about Overstock and him.[5][6]. By Bethany McLean. I dont think any of us can really believe what we saw today, one industry analyst told AP. According to the Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA), a lobbying group which represents CalPERs and other public investors, businesses backed by private equity employ more than 8.8 million Americans at over 35,000 companies, accounting for a staggering 5% of the United States GDP. She was previously married to Christopher Roberts Wilford. Americas energy independence was an illusion created by cheap debt. The Next Financial Crisis Lurks Underground, Coronavirus May Kill Our Fracking Fever Dream. Some of it has been packaged into so-called collateralized loan obligations, pieces of which are held by hedge funds. And President Trump reveled in the rhetoric: We hadnt merely achieved independence, his administration said, but rather energy dominance.. The key issue is the parent child problem. When wells are clustered tightly together, with so-called child wells drilled around the parent, the wells interfere with one another, resulting in less oil, not more. Bill White wants to restore Americas historical proclivity for balanced budgets. She has suggestions for how to approach the problem. We need private equity, we need more of it, and we need it now, chief investment officer Ben Meng said in early 2019right before CalPERS hired a former private-equity guy, who began his career at Goldman Sachs, to head its private-equity efforts. Mnuchin is a former Goldman Sachs executive and hedge fund guy; Blackstones Schwarzman has ties to Trump; Jared Kushners family business has gotten loans from Apollo, according to the Washington Post. McLean County reports 182 new COVID cases - pantagraph.com Demian McLean | The Seattle Times One is the so-called Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), set up to make $349 billion in government-guaranteed loans available to businesses with fewer than 500 employees. Certainly, President Trump, who has staked so much on the American shale industry, wants to save it. governor announced on Tuesday that he will convene a grand jury to investigate "crimes and wrongdoing" related to COVID-19 vaccines. COVID-19 Guidance for isolation and quarantine, COVID-19 Education and Outreach Materials Page. In 2019, Oxy, as its known, topped a competing bid from Chevron and paid $38 billion to take over Anadarko Petroleum, which is one of the major shale companies. They subprimed the American energy ecosystem, says a longtime energy market observer. In the first half of 2019, when oil was around $55 a barrel, only a few top-tier companies were profitable. The True Story of the Comey Letter Debacle | Vanity Fair Ad Choices. Airlines, hotels, and restaurantsall of whose revenues have cratered in the wake of sweeping stay-home ordershave engaged in Hunger Gameslike lobbying to cash in on the CARES Act, making their case for a share of the disaster relief. Best-selling author Bethany McLean reveals the true story of fracking's impact - on Wall Street, the economy, and geopolitics. NEW YORK Business writers Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera are collaborating on a critical take of the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic. It once seemed utterly unattainable until the advent of fracking, which unleashed a torrent of oil. Its still unclear where most of this debt is held. Deaths, active cases . Infuriatingly enough, the financial crisis in 2008 might even have saved private-equity firms from their sins. Saudi America: The Truth About Fracking and How Its Changing the World., stocks that make up the S.&P. Dec 2020 - Apr 20221 year 5 months. We could close that, once and for all. But it doesnt have to be a blank check. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. All rights reserved. [7][8] The Washington Post selected it as one of the best nonfiction books of 2015. At least 1 in 303 residents have died from the coronavirus, a total of 2,512 deaths. A loophole in the tax code currently allows private-equity financiers to pay taxes on their returns at the lower rate for capital gains, rather than the higher rate for personal income. Then came Covid-19, and, on March 8, the sudden and vicious end to the truce between Saudi Arabia and Russia, under which both countries limited production to prop up prices. We asked three experts two immunologists and an epidemiologist to weigh in on this and some of the hundreds of other questions weve gathered from readers recently, including how to make sense of booster and test timing, recommendations for children, whether getting covid is just inevitable and other pressing queries. BLOOMINGTON A total of 208 new COVID-19 cases have been reported by the McLean County Health Department from Jan. 27 through Friday. Mortgages should be used to buy homes, not for refinancing. Copyright 2023 WSLS.com is managed by Graham Digital and published by Graham Media Group, a division of Graham Holdings. This location, as with the other County contracted medical sheltering sites, will accept individuals from the local community that are referred through DPH. The Big Fail - by Joe Nocera & Bethany McLean (Hardcover) On March 10, the company announced that it would slash its dividend for the first time since the early 1990s, when Saddam Husseins invasion of Kuwait sent oil prices plummeting. Beleaguered pension funds, which suffered big losses in the financial crisis, could no longer count on decent returns from fixed investments, given how low interest rates have been kept by the Fed. Even before the COVID crisis, there were questions about how well private-equity investments were actually performing. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis is a nonfiction book by authors Bethany McLean and Joseph Nocera about the 2008 financial crisis. After Enron's rapid collapse later in 2001, McLean co-authored the book The Smartest Guys in the Room (2003) which detailed the corrupt business practices of Enron officials. In early 2015, the hedge fund manager David Einhorn announced at an investment conference that he had looked at the financial statements of 16 publicly traded shale producers and found that from 2006 to 2014, they spent $80 billion more than they received from selling oil. Moodys, the rating agency, said that in the third quarter of 2019, 91 percent of defaulted U.S. corporate debt was due to oil and gas companies. The politics dictating whether the private-equity industry will get its wishes are surprising. By signing up you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. McLean is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and co-author of the Enron book The Smartest Guys in the Room. Bethany Nesbitt, 20, was found dead in a residence hall at. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. 1. Covid-19 Information - Bethany College Coronavirus Resource Center: Testing and Vaccine Updates - CVS The man who shot his girlfriend and five relatives at a birthday celebration had "control issues". 208 new COVID cases reported in McLean County All rights reserved). Seventy-one members of the Bethany Slavic Missionary Church near Rancho Cordova or people associated with congregation members have been afflicted with the virus, county officials say, making. Novavax Inc said on Thursday it would require six months to produce a COVID-19 vaccine designed to match whichever coronavirus variants are circulating for an annual immunization program each fall . Fractivism: Corporate Bodies and Chemical Bonds, A Moderate Proposal: Nationalize The Fossil Fuel Industry, https://media.blubrry.com/belabored/dissentmagazine.org/mp3/24HotBothered.mp3. By Bethany McLean Coronavirus May Kill Our Fracking Fever Dream America's energy independence was an illusion created by cheap debt. McLean started her career as an investment banking analyst for Goldman Sachs[2] and joined Vanity Fair as a contributing editor in 2008. McLean was born in Hibbing, Minnesota on December 12, 1970. To revisit this article, visit My Profile, thenView saved stories. Given how much of the economy will rise and fall on the investments that private-equity funds manage, we may be forced to let them share the federal handout. Bethany McLean Latest Articles | Vanity Fair McLean County, Illinois Covid Case and Risk Tracker [1] In 1992 she received a B.A. As a result, private equity is now wound into the very fabric of our economy. Its thanks to those who are able to contribute that were able to make the podcast free for anyone to listen to. That, too, is ending, as investors in such funds have become disillusioned. Clients who show symptoms of COVID-19 (for example have a fever, cough, or difficulty breathing) and/or are waiting for their test results. 2 FOR DRIVE-THRU TESTING RESULTS: Lab samples are sent to an off-site laboratory and results may take 1 to 2 days or even longer in some instances or in times of peak demand. In each of the past four years, according to data-provider Preqin, private-capital managers raised over $500 billion of new money to invest. All thats left to tally is the environmental and financial damage. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com. Previous to her current roles, McLean was an editor-at-large at Fortune Magazine. In 2019, the American Investment Council (AIC), a lobbying group which represents private-equity giants like Blackstone, the Carlyle Group, Apollo Global Management, and KKR, declared that in order to continue to provide the benefits they guarantee, pensions must continue to invest in private equity.. And more! This is late 80s bad, a close observer of the industry says. A college student in Indiana died in her dorm room after testing positive for the coronavirus, school officials and her family said. Recent and archived work by Bethany McLean for The New York Times. NEW YORK Business writers Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera are collaborating on a critical take of the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic. January 2022 was the month with the highest average cases, while November 2020 was the month with the highest . By early 2019, America was the worlds largest producer of crude oil, surpassing both Saudi Arabia and Russia. Blame Congress for the meltdown, not Goldman Sachs. Writer: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. Get COVID-19 vaccine updates from the CDC. Manage all aspects of the daily operation for Ham Conversion, processing up to 1.5 million lbs/day . It is absolutely imperative, Waters recently wrote in support of private equity, that the reliefbe extended to protect all workers, irrespective of the affiliations of their employers. Translation: Workers shouldnt suffer just because their bosses sold a controlling stake in their businesses to a bunch of greedy fat cats. If private equity is handed billions in taxpayer money, it could use some of it to pay themselves hefty fees today, then pocket even more of it down the road, when they sell their portfolio companies and collect their 20% of the taxpayer-enabled gains.