After the 2008 Financial Crisis, the Economy Was Fracked Up

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

Barack, Washington, Wickenden, News, Obama, Politics, Wnyc, Lizza, President

4.3 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2018

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

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 and replacing 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, thereby reducing the flow of cheap capital, they believe that the industry will collapse.

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0:00.0	Hi there, I'm Lale Arikoglu, and this podcast is brought to you by Wilderness, a conservation-driven
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0:44.0	Things people love.
0:49.0	I'm Dorothy Wickendon.
0:51.0	On today's Politics and More podcast, the New Yorker's Eliza Griswold talks about fracking
0:56.3	with financial reporter Bethany McLean and investment banker Jim Chanos.
1:02.5	Fracking has long been controversial because of its effect on the environment, and it may
1:06.4	also have a destructive effect on the economy.
1:28.3	In some parts of the country right now, that sound, hydraulic drills and compressors used in fracking, is a constant presence. In Texas, the Dakotas, Pennsylvania, and other places too,
1:32.3	fracking has given us an energy boom.
1:35.3	It's made the U.S. into the world's leading producer of oil and gas by some estimates.
1:40.3	Fracking, of course, has been controversial.
1:42.3	It creates a lot of methane, which is a greenhouse
1:45.3	gas. It's been blamed for poisoning water tables and other environmental consequences.
1:51.7	Eliza Griswold's been writing a lot on the fracking industry, and she's discovered that it's
	...

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