MCHD offers free COVID-19 (PCR) testing every Tuesday and Wednesday from 9am-12pm inside the McLean County Health Department building, 200 W. Front Street in downtown Bloomington, Room 400E. Dylan Hollingsworth for The New York Times. 2023 Cond Nast. More than 100,000 people already have died in this country from the virus. As early as 2018, some investors had begun to tell companies that they wanted to see free cash flow, and that they were tired of compensation models that rewarded executives with rich paydays for increasing production, but failed to take profits into account. Private equity has made multibillionaires of executives like Blackstones Steve Schwarzman (net worth: $17.5 billion) and Apollos Leon Black ($7.5 billion). Was Tiffany involved? To keep growing, companies have to keep plowing billions back into the ground. Hot & Bothered is produced by Colin Kinniburgh. 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. She has been married to Sean Murray Berkowitz since May 2008. Think of private-equity firms as the banks of the corona crisis: They are, for better or worse, too big to fail. The politics dictating whether the private-equity industry will get its wishes are surprising. Since that time, Oxys stock has plummeted almost 80 percent in part due to fears that the Anadarko acquisition is going to prove so wildly unprofitable that it sinks the company. She is a writer, known for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005), Independent Lens (1999) and PBS NewsHour (1975). 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. 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. Americas energy independence was an illusion created by cheap debt. A hydraulic fracturing site in Denton, Texas. The book was later made into the Academy Award-nominated documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. 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. You can see how all of this is playing out by looking at Occidental Petroleum. What the Theranos trial says about the blurred lines between visionaries and frauds. Even so, he told me, a large number of private-equity firms ignored that guidance and decided to put very high levels of leverage on their portfolio companies. Maybe those firms should now be required to contribute more equity from their cash stockpiles, he suggests. [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]. Certainly, President Trump, who has staked so much on the American shale industry, wants to save it. On the surface, it appears that two unforeseeable and random shocks are threatening our dream. Bethany McLean is a Vanity Fair contributing editor. 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. The allies of private equity hope that similar exemptions will soon be forthcoming for their firms.We are in a wait-and-see mode, Chris Hayes, the ILPAs senior policy counsel, told me. Nocera is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion and co-author of Indentured, about the NCAA. Driven partly by public pensions, the private-equity industry has mushroomed. 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. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. If you need help with the Public File, call (713) 778-4745. 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. Sign up for our daily Hive newsletter and never miss a story. Traders last year at the New York Stock Exchange near the post that trades Anadarko Petroleum and Occidental Petroleum. Copyright 2023 WSLS.com is managed by Graham Digital and published by Graham Media Group, a division of Graham Holdings. She is known for her writing on the Enron scandal and the 2008 financial crisis. 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 . Portfolio, a Penguin Random House imprint . The title and release date have not yet been determined. Bethany College will continue to adapt and collaborate as needed to encourage vaccines and boosters for staff and students. That means public pensions might be forced to dump their holdings in public-backed investments to provide private-equity firms with emergency casha move that could depress the stock market even further. Daily updates from Washington, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley. [12], McLean married Chris Wilford in 2000 and divorced in 2006. 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. More than 100,000 people already have died in this country from the virus. 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. Like so many other facets of the COVID-19 crisis, however, this unprecedented crash exposed long-running cracks in the facade. Even before the coronavirus crisis, the spigot was drying up. The Next Financial Crisis Lurks Underground, Coronavirus May Kill Our Fracking Fever Dream. In this episode, McLeanwho has tracked the industrys shaky footing for yearstraces the ups and downs of the industry from the 1970s to 2008 to today, and assesses whether a new recession will speed the transition away from fossil fuelsor hand oil barons a life raft. The socio-economic status of individuals needing . Here are some tips. She resides in Chicago with her children. Is there any chance this could lead to prison time? The community level of Covid-19 in McLean County is low based on cases and hospitalizations, according to the most recent update from the C.D.C. Bethany McLean. As a group of scientists who study virusesexplains, Theres no reason, at least biologically, that the virus wont continue to evolve.From a different angle, the science writer David Quammen surveys some of the highly effective tools and techniques that are now available for studying Covid and other viruses, but notes that such knowledge alone wont blunt the danger. That, too, is ending, as investors in such funds have become disillusioned. Bethany McLean is a Vanity Fair contributing editor. Fracking, they said, was just manufacturing, in which process and human intelligence could reduce costs and conquer geology. Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. Get COVID-19 vaccine updates from the CDC. 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 . https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/covid-by-county.htm January 12, 2022 COVID Update Update on Bethany College COVID Response 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. 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 taxpayer handouts will also help private equity continue its relentless march through the global economy, snapping up troubled companies at bargain prices or extending high-priced credit as other investors, including hedge funds, are forced to sell off their holdings in the post-corona landscape. Even as the public equity and debt markets grew cautious, drilling continued. Pension funds that have poured money into private equity firms may take a hit soon, too. 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. As a result, private equity is now wound into the very fabric of our economy. As a result, the stocks that make up the S.&P. 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.The title and release date have not yet been determined. 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. 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. [citation needed], She authored an article on Enron for the March 5, 2001, issue of Fortune entitled, "Is Enron Overpriced? Its essential that we do the same today. Writer: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. Waters, in her letter, argues for placing even more strings on the money taken by private-equity-backed companies. Fractivism: Corporate Bodies and Chemical Bonds, A Moderate Proposal: Nationalize The Fossil Fuel Industry, https://media.blubrry.com/belabored/dissentmagazine.org/mp3/24HotBothered.mp3. Occidental is just one piece of the puzzle. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. These firms not only have a record $1.5 trillion in cash on the sidelines, waiting to be invested, but their CEOs are among Americas richest executives. Over the past 10 years, the entire energy industry has issued over $400 billion in high-yield debt. Policymakers who wanted to tout energy independence disregarded all this, even as investors were starting to lose patience. 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. In the Season One finale of Making A Killing, Bethany brings back her friend, colleague and co-author Joe Nocera (Bloomberg Opinion columnist and creator of The Shrink Next Door podcast) to bookend the season with a lively analysis of the former head of Nissan Motor Co. and Renault S.A., Carlos Ghosn. He and McLean previously worked together on All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis, about the 2008 market crash. No food or drink for one hour prior to testing. The SHIELD saliva-based testing is available for all ages. 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. 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. How concerning are things like long covid and reinfections? Contents 1 Early life and education 2 Career Its thanks to those who are able to contribute that were able to make the podcast free for anyone to listen to. Whiting Petroleum, whose stock once traded for $150 a share, filed for bankruptcy. All rights reserved). Ad Choices. NEW YORK Business writers Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera are collaborating on a critical take of the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic. All thats left to tally is the damage. 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. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. McLean is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and co-author of the Enron book "The Smartest Guys in the Room." Nocera. Confirmed case data are from the Department of Public Health's communicable disease surveillance database. 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. 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. Recent and archived work by Bethany McLean for The New York Times. Rasmussen points out that after the financial crisis in 2008, the Federal Reserve set a limit on the amount of debt it considered prudent. 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. governor announced on Tuesday that he will convene a grand jury to investigate "crimes and wrongdoing" related to COVID-19 vaccines. 500 energy sector fell, questions weve gathered from readers recently, adequate research and support for sufferers, according to the law firm Haynes and Boone. After the United States engaged in a high-stakes negotiation with Russia and Saudi Arabia to curtail production, a tentative deal was struck on Thursday. 500 energy sector fell 20 percent, marking the sectors largest drop on record. Click here to take a moment and familiarize yourself with our Community Guidelines. David Wallace Wells writes that by one estimate, 100,000 Americans could die each yearfrom the coronavirus. Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more. McLean started her career as an investment banking analyst for Goldman Sachs[2] and joined Vanity Fair as a contributing editor in 2008. Confirmed cases include those reported since the beginning of the current active outbreak and may include cases that . Getting the government out of the housing market would mean saying goodbye to the 30-year mortgage. 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. in English and mathematics from Williams College. After nearly bringing down the economy in 2008, how is it possible that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are still around? All rights reserved. TDD: (800) 526-0844 In April, the Energy Information Administration cut its forecast for U.S. oil production, estimating that it will fall both this year and next suggesting that the days of huge growth in production from shale are over. 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. Bethany McLean was born on 12 December 1970 in Hibbing, Minnesota, USA. 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. 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. The fear, of course, is that private equity will do what private equity does best, which is pocket the money themselves rather than devoting it to the businesses theyve invested in. The fracking boom that drove a decade of record U.S. oil and gas production was never really profitable to begin with. The reason is as simple as it is galling: while great private fortunes, such as that of Blackstones Stephen Schwarzman (net worth: $17.5 billion and Apollos Leon Black ($7.5 billion), have been made from private equitys march through the world, its losses, to a remarkable degree, will belong to all of us. The total number of . Americas energy independence was an illusion created by cheap debt. The 42 Best Romantic Comedies of All Time, The 25 Best Shows on Netflix to Watch Right Now. So why should they be permitted to raid the federal Treasury in a time of crisis? We could close that, once and for all. And President Trump reveled in the rhetoric: We hadnt merely achieved independence, his administration said, but rather energy dominance.. One of the key principles behind private equity is that increased leverageaka more debtcan make a business function more efficiently. 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. Unfortunately, there isnt really an alternative to providing private equity with federal funds. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Best-selling author Bethany McLean reveals the true story of fracking's impact - on Wall Street, the economy, and geopolitics. By early 2019, America was the worlds largest producer of crude oil, surpassing both Saudi Arabia and Russia. FILE - In this Friday, June 12, 2020 file photo, a nurse uses a swab to perform a coronavirus test in Salt Lake City. He and McLean previously worked together on All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis, about the 2008 market crash. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com. She has suggestions for how to approach the problem. So the era of low interest rates, which began with former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and continues to this day, has been a huge boon to private-equity firms. (Adila Mchich, CME Group), Fractivism: Corporate Bodies and Chemical Bonds (Sarah Ann Wylie), The Fracktivists (Colin Kinniburgh, Dissent), Kate: A Moderate Proposal: Nationalize The Fossil Fuel Industry (The New Republic), This week, Kate and Daniel talk to Bethany McLean, author most recently of, Saudi America: The Truth about Fracking and How Its Changing the World, The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron, If you like the episode and want to hear more, sign up as a monthly member at. The book, which she wrote from the couple's home, puts a human face to the crisis. [13][14][15] They divorced in 2020. In reality, the dream was always an illusion, and its collapse was already underway. Nocera and McLean writing book on U.S. coronavirus response By The Associated Press June 24, 2020 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. Bill White wants to restore Americas historical proclivity for balanced budgets. Previous to her current roles, McLean was an editor-at-large at Fortune Magazine. Previous assignments include editor-at-large, columnist for Fortune, and a contributor to Slate. In 2018, according to analytics firm eVestment, pension funds in the U.S. and the U.K. pumped 27% of their fresh allocations of money into private-equity funds, up from 25% the year before. Energy independence was a fever dream, fed by cheap debt and frothy capital markets. What could endemic Covid look like? BLOOMINGTON A total of 208 new COVID-19 cases have been reported by the McLean County Health Department from Jan. 27 through Friday. Private equity, of course, came of age in the 1980s, when greed was good and private-equity titans like KKRs Henry Kravis first burst into the limelight by taking over famed American manufacturers like RJR Nabisco. This week, Ms. McLean begins promoting her new book, "All the Devils are Here," about the current financial crisis. New revelations about how one Trump staffer helped preserve the transfer of powerfrom the forthcoming book on the Biden White House, COVID-19 Origins: Investigating a Complex and Grave Situation Inside a Wuhan Lab. If you need help with the Public File, call 540-512-1558. In the first half of 2019, when oil was around $55 a barrel, only a few top-tier companies were profitable. "[3] The article noted some irregularities in Enron's financial documents that were available to the public, suggesting the company's then-record high stock price was unjustified but she did not at that point suspect fraud at Enron. The active outbreak list is intended to inform the public of the current COVID-19 outbreaks in Los Angeles County. Hours 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. today. The fracking boom that drove a decade of record U.S. oil and gas production was never really profitable to begin with. McLean graduated from Hibbing High School in 1988. Manage all aspects of the daily operation for Ham Conversion, processing up to 1.5 million lbs/day . 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 man who shot his girlfriend and five relatives at a birthday celebration had "control issues". (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer), Connect with the definitive source for global and local news. [16] McLean resides in Chicago with her children. A journalist profiles the developers and devotees who have aided the rise of cybercurrency. As a result, fracking stocks badly underperformed the market. The title and release date have not yet been determined. Never mind that they often overpaid for the companies they acquired, and loaded them up with so much debt that even a mild economic downturn could make it nearly impossible for those companies to repay their loans, as Fortune put it. But it doesnt have to be a blank check. And North American oil and gas drillers have almost $100 billion of debt that is set to mature in the next four years. Check out the full Hot & Bothered archive here. Americas energy independence was built on an industry that is the very definition of dependent dependent on investors to keeping pouring billions upon billions in capital into money-losing companies to fund their drilling. The promised profits havent materialized. NEW YORK Business writers Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera are collaborating on a critical take of the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic. Previous assignments include editor-at-large, columnist for Fortune, and a contributor to Slate . 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.. Bethany Nesbitt, 20, was found dead in a residence hall at. The value of West Texas Intermediate crude, a U.S. benchmark, dipped below zero for a few hourstrading as low as negative $40 a barrel. COVID-19 Origins: Investigating a "Complex and Grave Situation" Inside a Wuhan Lab. Looking for more? The Wuhan Institute of Virology, the cutting-edge biotech facility at the center of swirling suspicions about the pandemics onset, was far more troubled than previously known, explosive documents unearthed by a Senate research team reveal. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer), (Rick Bowmer, Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. Are Crude Oil & Natural Gas Prices Linked? Her two books are the The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing. And more! He and McLean previously worked together on All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis, about the 2008 market crash. 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.
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