Bethany McLean
@bethanymac12
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Journalist. Often wrong, always in doubt. But my thoughts are most definitely my own.
Chicago, IL
Joined September 2013
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A friend just told me there is $600 billion in energy BBB rated debt. And $2 trillion in BBB minus. Might energy debt be the catalyst for a crisis after all?
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"Facebook is a company started by a teen in his dorm room to rank the hotness of Harvard students that has today grown into the market leader in the field of apologizing for privacy violations." Best line EVER from
@matt_levine
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I don't get zero covid. Why not zero TB, zero influenza, zero diabetes, zero deaths from heart disease, zero opioid overdoses, and on, and on? Why are we utterly indifferent to all these deaths, yet willing to inflict all kinds of misery on millions in order to prevent covid?
Anyone know why we let measles kill >100,000 children per year, possibly more children than
#covid19
will ever kill?
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I love how capitalists turn into socialists when their own economic well being is threatened. Why not? It worked for the big banks.
Thoughts?
@bethanymac12
White House likely to pursue federal aid for shale companies hit by oil shock downturn - The Washington Post
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Thank you. This is very much appreciated.
Business journalist, best-selling author and
@VanityFair
contributing editor Bethany McLean (
@bethanymac12
) will receive
@SABEW
's highest honor – its Distinguished Achievement Award – for 2024 at
#SABEW24
.
🔗
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So a lot of people (rightly) raised questions about who would benefit financially if hydroxychloroquine worked. Given this, maybe we should also ask who stood to benefit financially by not giving it a chance.
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@AlexBerenson
@jpressler
@goc2029
@EXQUIRENTIBUS11
All I know for sure is that no one knows anything for sure, not yet, that if we refuse to allow debate/discussion we are done, and that it's always way easier to go with the conventional wisdom than to raise questions.
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I've had the pleasure of reading the first part of
@alexberenson
's book. Yes, it's contrarian. And thoughtful and solidly grounded in facts. If ALL journalists aren't protesting this censorship, we are sealing our own fate. Please, everyone.
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It's a twisted world we've built: pension funds, which exist to care for workers, are enabling private equity, which exists to slash those workers' jobs. via
@WSJ
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I'm glad it's now conventional wisdom that the US has screwed our kids, big time. But when I remember the personal abuse heaped upon those of us who called this last spring - WHEN IT WAS STILL FIXABLE - I get a little angry.
One of the best articles written about schools in US vs UK
Political opposition to Trump, and the unions, and not any infrastructure were the key barriers, and remain so.
This is a similar conclusion to the one I have reached after examining this
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Random happy bit: My sister, a neonatologist, tells me that there are babies in the ICU who have never seen people without masks on. And guess what? They still start smiling.
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Still trying to keep up with my very inspiring 78 year old mother!
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Basic question: Is it healthy for us to have most of our semiconductor manufacturing outsourced to a place where US politicians are not supposed to set foot?
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I'm sure others have noticed that South Dakota's hospitalizations are down almost 50% from the peak. Happy holidays indeed!
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My new (mini) book attempts to explain the financial foundations of fracking (say that fast!) and how our newfound energy riches might affect geopolitics. If interested (thank you if so!) ask about it here or preorder here.
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The woman sitting next to me on the plane painstakingly wiped down her entire area with hand sanitizer but her mask is hanging below her nose. People are insane.
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Notice the tight correlation to lockdowns and re-openings. Oh...wait.
Coronavirus hospitalizations keep falling
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Random thought: If PE firms increasingly sell their holdings to each other or themselves, isn't the whole industry writ large a giant debt fueled ponzi scheme?
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My latest book from
@ColumbiaGR
is coming out in the fall. I had fun drilling (sorry, couldn't resist) into a topic I've long found fascinating, and I hope others will find it interesting too.
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Crazy thought: Maybe we should take the people who have called this correctly as seriously as we do the ones who have been wildly off.
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I don't think this matters to the future of Tesla, but isn't it interesting how little we care about fraud—sometimes?
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What percentage of outside shareholders would have voted for the merger if they had understood this?
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If
@elonmusk
never intended to buy Twitter, what was his end game? Attention? Or something else?
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I guess this is what happens when you need a birthday cake and mommy can’t cook.
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I think there must be a gene that makes you love dogs. I don’t understand people who lack it.
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Maybe the very ridiculousness of the cybertruck is part of the strategy.
@elonmusk
lowers the bar, both for his own behavior and the financials, to the point where it's easy to jump over it - and the stock soars.
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Shouldn’t it be a rule of airplane travel that the person in the middle gets the armrests?
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(1) If you are going to tweet nasty things about
@AlexBerenson
, you have to have read his book first. Fight argument with a better argument, not with empty vitriol.
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Late to my own story because of first day of school hell. Comments, criticism, additional insight always appreciated.
VF’s
@bethanymac12
, whose reporting helped bring down Enron, takes a long hard look at Elon Musk
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This is a stunning statistic. "Fuel-efficient vehicles and a long transition away from heavy industry mean the U.S. economy now consumes just 0.4 barrels of oil to produce $1,000 of gross domestic product, down from 1.1 barrels in 1972." via
@WSJ
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But of course, this could change with this virus or the next one, so maybe we should prevent kids from leaving their homes forever?
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A few questions: shouldn’t we call for an end to the pseudo science of cherry picking the scariest stats from preliminary papers and calling the approach “data driven”? At what point does fear become unhelpful?
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I'm late to this piece, but it strikes me as a thorough takedown of private equity. "The PE industry has created an effective and pervasive marketing myth: that they are superior to individual companies’ management... this is largely fiction."
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Excited for this!
Excited to reveal our new show,
#MakingaKillingPod
! Through convos with today’s best business writers & thinkers, host
@bethanymac12
cuts through hype and hand wringing to reframe stories you thought you understood. Subscribe only in
@hearluminary
to get the first ep on June 17!
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I would trust our experts so much more if those who predicted the apocalypse in these states would acknowledge and attempt to explain the actual data, instead of ignoring it.
The big 5 "hotspot" states, Arizona, California, Georgia, Florida & Texas continue to see big declines in hospitalization numbers.
8/20: 20,490 (-994 / -12.7% week over week drop)
8/19: 21,484
8/13: 23,486
Wonder why this isn't receiving more coverage
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As a doctor friend of mine says, the only difference between for profit and not for profit hospitals is that the not for profit CEOs make more money.
Sutter Health is one of largest hospital systems in California.
Today, Sutter agreed to $90 mln fine for Medicare fraud.
Yesterday, Sutter finalized $575 mln fine for using its market power to illegally drive up prices.
Sutter is a nonprofit with mission to serve the community.
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I'm thrilled that
@amazon
changed course. It's great that
@elonmusk
weighed in. But it's dispiriting to think that the only effective protest against a decision made by one billionaire's company might be another billionaire.
I've had the pleasure of reading the first part of
@alexberenson
's book. Yes, it's contrarian. And thoughtful and solidly grounded in facts. If ALL journalists aren't protesting this censorship, we are sealing our own fate. Please, everyone.
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@ratemyskyperoom
Oh dear. I need help on multiple levels, I guess. But at least I get the extra point. Actually, I think I should get two points: It's a sphynx cat. Deal?
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This is the best piece I've read on the pandemic. "As long as you don’t acknowledge that the real problem is that some people get to stay home while others need to go in to dangerous jobs or basically starve, you don’t have to do anything to fix it."
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The virus itself devastates the most physically vulnerable, and the necessary response to it is going to devastate the most financially vulnerable.
Analysts say millions of jobs in the U.S. may ultimately be affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
NPR heard from about 600 people who've already experienced layoffs or pay cuts. Here are some of their stories 👇
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My dad says there has never been a McLean who can raise a well behaved dog.
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I don’t know what the right metric is. But it would be good to understand the answer to this question: “How did ‘flattening the curve’ morph into ‘avoiding a second peak’?”
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This is why AOC’s met gala dress was purely performative
Once again the “tax the wealthy” crowd talks about loopholes but instead just wants to raise rates on those actually already paying ~50% while ignoring all their own rhetoric because of the wealthy donors the rely on, but pretend to eschew.
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Very exciting!
Some personal news (as they say): We're getting the band back together. 10 yrs after
@bethanymac12
and I wrote All The Devils Are Here, we're reuniting to write a book about the interplay of the economy and the pandemic. I'm lucky. She's the best.
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If this is accurate, and if there aren't documented cases of professors and/or support staff getting sick, it begs the obvious question: What the hell are we doing?
9/22/20 update on C19 among students on campus since August, from 37 U.S. universities: Despite ~48,300 “+ C19 tests” near absence of reported C19 hospitalizations, and zero reported deaths
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If these numbers from the ADA are right, shouldn't the public health community be focusing its efforts on preventing diabetes, not on keeping kids out of school?
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The anger about Sweden's strategy, and the desire to see it fail, continues to astound me.
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Out of all the bad things we've done to children in this pandemic, the worst one might be making little kids feel like it's their fault someone else got sick. There's personal responsibility, yes, but there's also inflicting guilt on children way too young to handle it.
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Ad I just heard on a Chicago radio station: "Learn how to flip houses using other people's money!" History is supposed to rhyme, not repeat, right?
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The more I think about this, the less sense it makes. The economy is destroyed. The vaccine is on the way. Why now? The cynical answer is politics, but this has always been an issue of livings and lives, and that should transcend politics. Right?
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Proof positive that Harvard knows that what students are paying for is the brand, not any actual learning. via
@nypost
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"In fact, virologists have wondered whether the common-cold coronaviruses also got their start as a pandemic, before settling in as routine viruses." Fascinating.
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When can we start acknowledging that the path of the virus is neither a political statement nor a sign of superior morality?
Last week, Illinois reported 15,415 cases in a single day, more than Florida ever did in a single day. This is despite Illinois' population being 40% lower.
Many of you probably did not know the dire situation in Illinois. That's because no mainstream media chose to report it.
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If someone tells you about the terrifying California variant without also mentioning the sharp decline in cases, one thing you know for sure is that their fear has overridden their ability to think critically.
@BallouxFrancois
The rapid decline in COVID cases in California also seems like relevant context, especially given that the claim is not that the variant is a new threat but rather that it's already somewhat firmly established.
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If planes were hotbeds for Covid, wouldn’t we have heard lots of stories of infected crew by now? Always possible I’ve missed them.
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Thinking about
#GSE
reform on a Saturday morning. Who doesn't? So many well paying jobs depend on a functioning housing finance system. Does Congress understand what's at stake here?
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I just saw a chart by Carlyle showing the rapid growth in companies describing themselves as "asset lite." Jeff Skilling really was ahead of his time.
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Try to put aside your views on covid. If this is an indication of how
@nytimes
conducts journalism today, we should all be very worried - because it's not at all clear how many other outlets will be left.
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Trigger warning: if lockdowns have become your religion, this bit of reality might be upsetting.
oopsie.
told you this was coming.
peru, once lauded as a success story for lockdowns and masks is now the world leader in per capita cov deaths. they are being handily outperformed by brazil, who did nothing and whose favelas are prime transmission vectors
this is all cosplay
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Wonderful work. What's painful is that this was obvious last spring.
@nytimes
and everyone who has let their hatred for Trump affect their views of school re-openings needs to take a hard look in the mirror. Can we ever fix things for these kids?
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Direct quote from the study: "We note these counterfactual experiments are based on idealized hypothetical assumptions." At this point, can we all at least agree that models do not necessarily reflect incontrovertible truths?
Had the US begun locking down just one week earlier, it would have saved 36,000 lives, study finds, and if it had done so two weeks earlier it would have saved 54,000 lives.
@jamesglanz
@campbellnyt
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It was a long slog, but I'm happy that the Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind, which I co-authored with
@opinion_joe
, will be published next week. There's something for everyone to love, hate and discuss!
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Another reason the PE backed shale drilling boom was so destructive: because when we need the oil, we really need it. And we were giving it away at a loss.
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Thank you so much for having me on! It was a really fun conversation.
My conversation with
@bethanymac12
on the many interesting topics she's explored:
-companies like Enron, Valeant, Wells, Tesla
-potential red flags like a "celebrated" leader
-housing & fracking in America
-the art of persistence
I loved this one
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Best/worst airport announcement ever just heard at DCA: “for passengers going to houston, your flight is not cancelled. But it’s not leaving tonight.”
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I can’t figure out who or what we were protecting (and not protecting) by not saying the obvious. But now someone is. H/T
@ritholtz
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The definition of founder fever: "Many were skeptical of the business, but they loved Mr. Neumann." Love this piece
@maureenmfarrell
via
@WSJ
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Uber driver in OC says she and husband were in real estate, lost all in 2008. Only now venturing back into "investment real estate." Hmm.
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Contrary take: teachers’ unions are doing exactly what they should do, which is advocate for teachers. The fallacy is that their interests are aligned with those of children. So, do we need kids’ unions?
Most Seattle teachers don’t want to return after vaccination unless other issues are addressed.
This isn’t just about health and safety, exhibit 34,291:
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One of my favorite topics. Come on - who out there isn't obsessed with the GSEs?!
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Is anyone else's household still in PJs? My girls and I are wondering if we should mandate getting dressed in the morning, but we've decided it's too late to bother today.
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I was on a flight to SFO when the pilot said “terrific news” and announced the lifting of the mask mandate. Anecdotes are dangerous but rough read: almost everyone took their masks off.
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Not that we needed more evidence that the game is now rigged
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Insane. But wasn't it the job of the supposed adults in the room—
#Softbank
,
@goldmansachs
,
@jpmorgan
, to name a few—to say NO!!!! long before things reached this point?
via
@WSJ
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@ZacBissonnette
Has there ever been anything else like Covid, where the only response that’s permitted when something doesn’t seem to work is to say, we must not have done enough of it?
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I wonder if lockdown fans would change their minds if Amazon workers got to stay home too.
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From
@jpmorgan
CEO's annual ltr: "Most professionals learn their job through an apprenticeship model, which is almost impossible to replicate in the Zoom world. Over time, this drawback could dramatically undermine the character and culture you want to promote in your company."
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Best line of many great lines: "If you tell a 30-year-old male he’s Jesus Christ, he’s inclined to believe you." Maybe not just 30 year olds...
h/T
@ritholtz
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We can quibble about the precise #. But if some 50% of deaths have occurred in a group that comprises less than 2% of the population, can we at least agree that analyses of the effectiveness of lockdowns that don’t take this into account are...problematic?
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How wonderful to wake up to a headline like this. Maybe humanity isn't doomed after all.
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This widely circulated
@TheAtlantic
piece said over 2 million Americans would be dead by the end of the summer from the virus. The prediction now: Less than 100K. Without minimizing the virus, can we not start to say that something has changed?
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We booked an old school (read carpeted) restaurant bc it was the only reservation available. Being able to hear others at the table was such a lovely luxury... H/T
@ritholtz
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An unpleasant and uncomfortable truth. "There is always risk...if we lock ourselves in our houses and lock down our economy and think that we've created a safe spot, that's an illusion, because that action itself creates enormous risks..." - Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.
Video about Focused Protection instead of
#lockdowns
and the details underlying the Great Barrington Declaration.
@SunetraGupta
Oxford, Jay Bhattacharya Stanford and
@MartinKulldorff
Harvard are interviewed by
@davidzweig
#gbdeclaration
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“The extraction of Americans’ personal data — the most valuable resource in the world today — is worth a whopping $76bn in yearly revenue...” Big Tech must pay for access to America’s ‘digital oil’ via
@financialtimes
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Martin Shkreli must be rolling his eyes from his jail cell. Which costs the healthcare system(taxpayers!) more, this or Daraprim?! via
@WSJ
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Thanks
@lopezlinette
for a very fun conversation!
.
@bethanymac12
is obsessed with the line between visionary & fraudster. On this
#MakingaKillingPod
:
#Tesla
& why Elon Musk doesn't care about you.
@businessinsider
's
@lopezlinette
reveals Musk's cult-like business practices. Listen for free
@hearluminary
:
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I’m glad it’s finally permissible to say these things. Because when you can’t ask questions, you will never find answers.
“CA & FL both have a COVID-19 case rate of around 8,900 per 100,000 residents since the pandemic began... And both rank in the middle among states for COVID-19 death rates — Florida was 27th as of Friday; California was 28th.”
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Another investing lesson we'll probably never learn: Beware when investments become a religion.
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