Confirmed case data are from the Department of Public Health's communicable disease surveillance database. 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. And why not? 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. [10][11] The 42 Best Romantic Comedies of All Time, The 25 Best Shows on Netflix to Watch Right Now. If you need help with the Public File, call (713) 778-4745. Americas energy independence was an illusion created by cheap debt. By signing up you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. 500 energy sector fell 20 percent, marking the sectors largest drop on record. The Next Financial Crisis Lurks Underground, Coronavirus May Kill Our Fracking Fever Dream. 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. On Thursday's show: The job forecast for the region in 2022, lessons from the collapse of Enron, a conversation with the late Stephen Sondheim, and the best new restaurants from the past year. By Bethany McLean. 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. 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. 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. This is late 80s bad, a close observer of the industry says. Jack Ewings Faster, Higher, Farther is more than the story of a scandal. The man who shot his girlfriend and five relatives at a birthday celebration had "control issues". According to the Institutional Limited Partners Association. 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. 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. 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. TDD: (800) 526-0844 What could endemic Covid look like? 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 Lee McLean (born December 12, 1970) is an American journalist and contributing editor for Vanity Fair magazine. You can see how all of this is playing out by looking at Occidental Petroleum. She has suggestions for how to approach the problem. The Wuhan Institute of Virology, the cutting-edge . 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 . As a result, private equity is now wound into the very fabric of our economy. The private-equity industry also wants the companies they have invested in to have access to the $454 billion being doled out through the Treasury, an amount that the Fed said could be leveraged into over $2 trillion. On March 10, Scott Sheffield, the chief executive of Pioneer Natural Resources, a major driller in the Permian Basin, told Bloomberg that U.S. oil output could fall by more than two million barrels per day by next year if prices remain where they are today. sure to go down in history as one of the wildest business stories ever. She has co-authored multiple bestselling books, including The Smartest Guys in the Room and All the Devils Are Here. 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. 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. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous . on March 2.Read more about the C.D.C . Exclusive: Inside the S--tshow That Was the Trump-Biden Transition. (And not all private-equity firms care equally about all of the programs.) Best-selling author Bethany McLean reveals the true story of fracking's impact - on Wall Street, the economy, and geopolitics. Bethany McLean is a Vanity Fair contributing editor. [1] In 1992 she received a B.A. . Some of it may be on bank balance sheets. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. The fracking boom that drove a decade of record U.S. oil and gas production was never really profitable to begin with. But they wont fix its fundamental problem with profitability. Bethany Nesbitt, 20, was found dead in a residence hall at. 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. Is there any chance this could lead to prison time? BLOOMINGTON A total of 208 new COVID-19 cases have been reported by the McLean County Health Department from Jan. 27 through Friday. Increasingly desperate to boost the portfolios of retiring workers, they too turned to private equity as their saviorurged on by private equitys promises that it alone could deliver the necessary returns. These cookies are used to collect information on how users interact with Chicago Booth websites allowing us to improve the user experience and optimize our site where needed based on these interactions. In May 2008, she married attorney Sean Berkowitz, the former Director of the United States Department of Justice Enron Task Force. About Bethany McLean is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. 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. On April 20, oil prices did something theyve never done before. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Private equity financiers typically get a 2 percent management fee on funds they can raise, so they are incentivized to take all the money that pension funds, desperate for returns to shore up their promises to retirees, have been willing to give them. McLean is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and co-author of the Enron book The Smartest Guys in the Room. If private equity suffers, the blow will reverberate throughout the entire economy. The active outbreak list is intended to inform the public of the current COVID-19 outbreaks in Los Angeles County. More than 100,000 people already have died in this country from the virus. The book was later made into the Academy Award-nominated documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. Thats a difficult question to answer definitely, writes the Opinion columnist Zeynep Tufekci, because of the lack of adequate research and support for sufferers, as well as confusion about what the condition even is. That, too, is ending, as investors in such funds have become disillusioned. 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. 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. 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. 200 W Front StreetBloomington, IL 61701Phone: (309) 888-5450 HoursMonday - Friday8 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more. NEW YORK Business writers Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera are collaborating on a critical take of the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic. Over the past 10 years, the entire energy industry has issued over $400 billion in high-yield debt. All rights reserved). 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. Click here to take a moment and familiarize yourself with our Community Guidelines. in English and mathematics from Williams College. Colombias Amazing Race to Build a $1,000 Ventilator Frontline Doctors Race to Learn the Mysteries of Coronavirus How Dr. Anthony Faucis Media Strategy Is Revolutionizing Coronavirus Messaging Can Americas Crowd-Driven Spectacles Return for the Fall Season? From the Archive: Following the Psychological Contagion That Fed the 2014 Ebola Outbreak. We could close that, once and for all. Copyright 2023 Click2Houston.com is managed by Graham Digital and published by Graham Media Group, a division of Graham Holdings. Bethany Lee McLean (born December 12, 1970) is an American journalist and contributing editor for Vanity Fair magazine. 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. She is also a columnist at Yahoo Finance and a contributor to CNBC. Recent and archived work by Bethany McLean for The New York Times. Restaurants and hotels owned by big chains have already received exemptions granting them access to the relief funds, regardless of how many people their parent companies employ. Hours The total number of . 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. 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.. (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.). If you like the episode and want to hear more, sign up as a monthly member at patreon.com/hotbotheredclimate today. governor announced on Tuesday that he will convene a grand jury to investigate "crimes and wrongdoing" related to COVID-19 vaccines. A deal, and higher oil prices, might help the industry. Energy independence was a fever dream, fed by cheap debt and frothy capital markets. McLean graduated from Hibbing High School in 1988. Sign up for our daily Hive newsletter and never miss a story. Blame Congress for the meltdown, not Goldman Sachs. Like so many other facets of the COVID-19 crisis, however, this unprecedented crash exposed long-running cracks in the facade. 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. The promised profits havent materialized. The man who shot his girlfriend and five relatives at a birthday celebration had "control issues". Thanks to the $2 trillion bipartisan bailout bill, the industrys coronavirus losses will belong to all of us. "Dow 36,000" co-authors stand by book's premise. Private-equity managers won the financial crisis, as Bloomberg put it last fall. Until the capital markets began to get suspicious, private equity investors could flip companies they had funded to larger, public companies, making a profitable exit regardless of whether or not the underlying business was making money. 1. A college student in Indiana died in her dorm room after testing positive for the coronavirus, school officials and her family said. Now, it has been shut off. 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. She is known for her writing on the Enron scandal and the 2008 financial crisis. Bethany McLean. Certainly, President Trump, who has staked so much on the American shale industry, wants to save it. She is known for her writing on the Enron scandal and the 2008 financial crisis. 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. Anyone can read what you share. Like the big banks in 2008, private equity is holding us all hostage. But it doesnt have to be a blank check. 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. Bethany McLean is a Vanity Fair contributing editor. 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. How concerning are things like long covid and reinfections? Bethany McLean is a Vanity Fair contributing editor. 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. Almost everything thats happened since 2008 has tilted in their favor. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. She is the co-author of the 2003 book, "The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron," which was the basis for the Academy Award-nominated documentary of the same name. She has been married to Sean Murray Berkowitz since May 2008. Pension funds that have poured money into private equity firms may take a hit soon, too. But there are ways to make it work better. 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 that's left to tally is the damage. 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. 500 energy sector fell, questions weve gathered from readers recently, adequate research and support for sufferers, according to the law firm Haynes and Boone. As a result, the stocks that make up the S.&P. Deaths, active cases . Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. [12], McLean married Chris Wilford in 2000 and divorced in 2006. 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. COVID-19 Origins: Investigating a "Complex and Grave Situation" Inside a Wuhan Lab. Has its bubble finally burst? According to the CARES Act, companies can only receive loans from the Small Business Administration if they commit to preserving jobs. The industrys total assets under management have hit a record $4.1 trillion. McLean is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and co-author of the Enron book The Smartest Guys in the Room. Actually, no. Hot & Bothered is produced by Colin Kinniburgh. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. There are several pots of federal money that the private-equity industry is lobbying to access. One of the key principles behind private equity is that increased leverageaka more debtcan make a business function more efficiently. Fractivism: Corporate Bodies and Chemical Bonds, A Moderate Proposal: Nationalize The Fossil Fuel Industry, https://media.blubrry.com/belabored/dissentmagazine.org/mp3/24HotBothered.mp3. FILE - In this Friday, June 12, 2020 file photo, a nurse uses a swab to perform a coronavirus test in Salt Lake City. Policymakers who wanted to tout energy independence disregarded all this, even as investors were starting to lose patience. 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. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. If you need help with the Public File, call 540-512-1558. Getting the government out of the housing market would mean saying goodbye to the 30-year mortgage. David Wallace Wells writes that by one estimate. 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. Bethany McLean. She was previously married to Christopher Roberts Wilford. 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.. David Wallace Wells writes that by one estimate, 100,000 Americans could die each yearfrom the coronavirus. Whiting Petroleum, whose stock once traded for $150 a share, filed for bankruptcy. Rasmussen points out that after the financial crisis in 2008, the Federal Reserve set a limit on the amount of debt it considered prudent. Ms. McLean is the author of Saudi America: The Truth About Fracking and How Its Changing the World., Ever since the oil shocks of the 1970s, the idea of energy independence, which in its grandest incarnation meant freedom from the worlds oil-rich trouble spots, has been a dream for Democrats and Republicans alike. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/covid-by-county.htm January 12, 2022 COVID Update Update on Bethany College COVID Response Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. 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. In each of the past four years, according to data-provider Preqin, private-capital managers raised over $500 billion of new money to invest. Even before the coronavirus crisis, the spigot was drying up. Unlike venture capitalists, who provide start-up funds to new companies, private-equity firms generally take over existing businesses, usually by borrowing large sums of money. The half decade from 2013 to 2018 saw the most private-equity deals over any five-year period in American history. In the first half of 2019, when oil was around $55 a barrel, only a few top-tier companies were profitable. All rights reserved. More than 100,000 people already have died in this country from the virus. The Next Financial Crisis Lurks Underground (Bethany McLean, New York Times), Coronavirus May Kill Our Fracking Fever Dream (Bethany McLean, New York Times), Are Crude Oil & Natural Gas Prices Linked? Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. No food or drink for one hour prior to testing. In reality, the dream was always an illusion, and its collapse was already underway. Monday - Friday James Glassman says his seven-year-old prediction that the Dow Jones industrial average will rise to 36,000 wasn't wrong, just early. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. 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. Its a rich history of a company, and a case study in how a corporate culture can turn toxic. "[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. McLean started her career as an investment banking analyst for Goldman Sachs[2] and joined Vanity Fair as a contributing editor in 2008. Dec 2020 - Apr 20221 year 5 months. 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. From 2015 through 2019, private equity firms raised almost $80 billion in funds focused mostly on shale production, according to Barclays. So if Blackstones investments crater, the teachers, firefighters, and health care workers who are counting on those investments to generate the returns necessary to pay their pensions will suffer. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories. 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. NEW YORK Business writers Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera are collaborating on a critical take of the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic. We could also limit the deductibility of interest payments for tax purposes even more than President Donald Trumps new tax law already did, so companies arent encouraged to load up on debt. By Bess Levin . Its thanks to those who are able to contribute that were able to make the podcast free for anyone to listen to. 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. We could go even further. Free COVID-19 testing is available at the McLean County Health Department from 9 a.m. to noon every Tuesday and Wednesday in Room 400E of the MCHD building at 200 W. Front St. in Bloomington. Ever since Congress voted to hand out $2 trillion in taxpayer money to those hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic, American businesses have been scrambling for a piece of the action. 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. Driven partly by public pensions, the private-equity industry has mushroomed. How Screwed Are Donald Trump and His Adult Children, and Other Questions You Might Have About the Staggering Fraud Lawsuit Against Them. I dont think any of us can really believe what we saw today, one industry analyst told AP. Infuriatingly enough, the financial crisis in 2008 might even have saved private-equity firms from their sins. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. McLean was born in Hibbing, Minnesota on December 12, 1970. 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. [citation needed] She began as a contributor to Slate's Moneybox column, in 2010 and "The Bulldog" column in Fortune. Daily updates from Washington, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley. As a result, fracking stocks badly underperformed the market. If you need help with the Public File, call 540-512-1558. Copyright 2023 WSLS.com is managed by Graham Digital and published by Graham Media Group, a division of Graham Holdings. 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. But with super-low interest rates, investors in search of yield were still willing to buy debt. The SHIELD saliva-based testing is available for all ages. COVID-19 Origins: Investigating a "Complex and Grave Situation" Inside a Wuhan Lab. Even as the public equity and debt markets grew cautious, drilling continued. [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. When will the pandemic end? Occidental is just one piece of the puzzle. Bethany McLean was born on 12 December 1970 in Hibbing, Minnesota, USA. Tar Heel, North Carolina, United States. Manage all aspects of the daily operation for Ham Conversion, processing up to 1.5 million lbs/day . 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 as well as the bestselling The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron, with Peter Elkind. 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. But that didnt seem to matter, because low interest rates facilitated private equity in another way. 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.. Music: Mercurias Meet Victor Rice, Carregar (Instrumental), courtesy of Total Running Time. It once seemed utterly unattainable until the advent of fracking, which unleashed a torrent of oil. 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. Nocera is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion and co-author of Indentured, about the NCAA. 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. Coronavirus May Kill Our Fracking Fever Dream, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-texas-fracking-layoffs.html. All rights reserved. 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.