After the 2008 Financial Crisis, the Economy Was Fracked Up

After the 2008 Financial Crisis, the Economy Was Fracked Up

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act injected almost nine hundred billion dollars into the U.S. economy to help the nation recover from the 2008 financial crisis. Ninety billion dollars went to clean energy, with the intention of jump-starting a new “green economy” to replace aging fossil-fuel technologies. Instead, the bill may have done the opposite. Low interest rates, which made borrowing easier, encouraged a flood of financing for the young fracking industry, which used novel chemical techniques to extract gas and oil. Fracking boomed, and made the U.S. the leading producer of oil and gas by some estimates. The financial journalist Bethany McLean and the investor and hedge-fund manager Jim Chanos tell The New Yorker’s Eliza Griswold that something in the fracking math doesn’t add up. If interest rates rise, reducing the flow of cheap capital, they believe that the industry will collapse.

Then, the former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson tells Adam Davidson what went wrong in Obama’s policy. Subsidies for specific industries, like solar, can’t change the market significantly enough, Paulson says. In his view—one shared by a growing consensus of economists—we need to correctly assess the costs of carbon emissions to society, and charge those costs to the emissions’ producers: a carbon tax. Then, with a more level playing field, the market can pick the best source of energy.

Jaksot(1020)

Donald Trump’s War on Culture Is Not a Sideshow

Donald Trump’s War on Culture Is Not a Sideshow

The term “culture wars” is most often associated with issues of sexuality, race, religion, and gender. But, as recent months have made plain, when Donald Trump refers to the culture wars, he also mean...

29 Elo 202531min

How Extreme Heat Affects the Body

How Extreme Heat Affects the Body

The Korey Stringer Institute, at the University of Connecticut, is named after an N.F.L. player who died of exertional heatstroke. The lab’s main research subjects have been athletes, members of the m...

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How Big Tech Sets the Agenda in Trump’s America

How Big Tech Sets the Agenda in Trump’s America

Donald Trump is the most tech-friendly President in American history. He enlisted social media to win office; he became a promoter—and beneficiary—of cryptocurrency, breaking long-standing norms aroun...

22 Elo 202532min

A Palestinian Journalist Escapes Death in Gaza

A Palestinian Journalist Escapes Death in Gaza

Mohammed R. Mhawish was living in Gaza City during Israel’s invasion, in the immediate aftermath of the October 7th attack. He witnessed the invasion for months and reported on its devastating consequ...

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Spike Lee and Denzel Washington on a Reunion Making “Highest 2 Lowest”

Spike Lee and Denzel Washington on a Reunion Making “Highest 2 Lowest”

Spike Lee and Denzel Washington first worked together on “Mo’ Better Blues,” released in 1990. Washington starred as a trumpet player trying to make a living in jazz clubs; Lee, who directed the film,...

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Richard Brody Picks Three Favorite Clint Eastwood Films

Richard Brody Picks Three Favorite Clint Eastwood Films

With seven decades in film and television, Clint Eastwood is undeniably a Hollywood institution. Emerging first as a star in Westerns, then as the embattled cop in the Dirty Harry films, the ninety-fi...

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Your Questions Answered: Trump vs. the Rule of Law

Your Questions Answered: Trump vs. the Rule of Law

From the attempt to end birthright citizenship to the gutting of congressionally authorized agencies, the Trump Administration has created an enormous number of legal controversies. The Radio Hour ask...

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Jamaica Kincaid on “Putting Myself Together”

Jamaica Kincaid on “Putting Myself Together”

Jamaica Kincaid began writing for The New Yorker in 1974, reporting about life in the magazine’s home city. She was a young immigrant from Antigua, then a British colony; she had been sent to New York...

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