Bethany McLean

Journalist. Mother of teenage girls who make merciless fun of anything else I say, so I will say nothing else.

[Bethany McLean @bethanymac12]

@Activ8Insights @realsteveeisman @UnicusResearch @ActAccordingly I’m so glad you like Capitalisn’t.

[Bethany McLean @bethanymac12]

Yay Chicago! @serwer https://t.co/6ZRjucWeqJ

[Bethany McLean @bethanymac12]

@ScottCov123 Thank you. I have given up on that one because I would have been wrong for the last - oh, 15 years :)

[Bethany McLean @bethanymac12]

A long long time ago, a company called Enron owned both the equity and the debt in some of its deals, which smart people explained to me was a bad idea. I’ve wondered why that stopped being true.

[Nick Nemeth (Mispriced Assets) @NickNemo17]

For four years I’ve listened to private equity guys explain why exits weren’t happening.

Rates.
Lina Khan.
The election.
Tariffs.

The excuse changes every six months.

The inventory still grows.

There are still tens of thousands of PE-backed companies waiting to be sold, private credit funds pretending marks are real, and insurers funding the whole machine.

Maybe the problem isn’t Washington.

Maybe the problem is that the smart money got high on its own supply.

No paywall.

https://t.co/YSNvXW6cBE

[Chicago Booth Review @chicagoboothrev]

Why do corporations always win at the Supreme Court?

@UCLA_Law's @adamwinkler joins #Capitalisnt hosts @zingales and @bethanymac12 to discuss a 200-year campaign by business to win the constitutional rights of human beings. https://t.co/VqaPr2gMZZ

[Bethany McLean @bethanymac12]

Love this. And even as you get older, you can keep discovering new romances with the city. H/T @ritholtz. How Can You Not be Romantic About NYC? https://t.co/9YnNsFkWb0

[Bethany McLean @bethanymac12]

“Hire us because we’re too lazy to bother thinking for ourselves” doesn’t seem like particularly effective marketing

[Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum]

Amazing: KPMG wrote a report describing the successful use of AI by businesses. But the case studies turned out to be AI hallucinations.
https://t.co/s3LE8vedNi

[The Podcast Browser @PodcastBrowser]

Podcast with Quinn Slobodian about his book Muskism. Argues Muskism instrumentalises government for profit, leverages infrastructure as power through vertical integration, and treats social contracts as optimisation problems.
@zingales
@bethanymac12 https://t.co/ppfCrcslB0

[Stigler Center @StiglerCenter]

According to @UCLA_Law professor Adam Winkler, originalist justices have often been responsible for the expansion of corporate rights. But, he says, there is absolutely no historical evidence that the framers wanted to protect business corporations.

🎧Listen to the full Capitalisn't podcast below to hear hosts @zingales & @bethanymac12 debate the wild history of corporate personhood 👇

[Bethany McLean @bethanymac12]

@StewieMAnderson The evidence (at least that which is publicized) points in the other direction. Then again, most “miracle” drugs do turn out to have a downside…I’m curious why you say that.

[Bethany McLean @bethanymac12]

Life in America: a healthcare company that won’t pay for its own workforce to be healthier bc profits matter more. “HCA Healthcare…stopped covering the drugs for weight-loss use as of January after use of GLP-1s on its employee plan surged 90% in 2025…”

https://t.co/PoY1YB5Yb9

[Bethany McLean @bethanymac12]

@mtm14 @MarginOfRisk404 That’s a lot easier for some people than for others. But regardless of where responsibility lies, the societal cost of healthcare will be way less if obesity falls. It’s long term stupid that corporate America won’t help.

[Bethany McLean @bethanymac12]

@BoringBiz_ Maybe more true in the past than it has become bc incentives have changed? Cheap debt made it easier to get returns by adding debt than by improving the business. PE firms being publicly traded rewards asset accumulation and the swift deployment of capital.

[Stigler Center @StiglerCenter]

Are we allowing corporations to cherry-pick the perks of personhood while avoiding the responsibilities?

UCLA law professor Adam Winkler tells @bethanymac12 & @zingales that while the Constitution famously begins with We the People, the legal history shows a steady shift toward We the Corporations.

Listen to the full Capitalisn’t podcast below 👇

[Bethany McLean @bethanymac12]

Speaking of Onion headlines.
#Trump Names Housing Chief Bill Pulte as Acting Director of National Intelligence https://t.co/abE9vrmLF1

[Stigler Center @StiglerCenter]

How does a free, decentralized, volunteer-run encyclopedia produce something more trusted than many for-profit institutions?

@zingales & @bethanymac12 sit down with Wikipedia founder @jimmy_wales on the latest Capitalisn’t to explore how the platform organizes global knowledge.

🎧 Full podcast below 👇

[Bethany McLean @bethanymac12]

Thoughts welcome. Political independence is a huge issue for the Fed - but so is what people call "financial dominance."

https://t.co/CIxYO7xtpn

[Bethany McLean @bethanymac12]

This reads like the Onion!

[The New York Times @nytimes]

Breaking News: Steven Rosenbaum, the author of “The Future of Truth,” acknowledged that the nonfiction book about the effects of A.I. on truth included misattributed or fake quotes concocted by A.I. https://t.co/QFkX5BqlKs

[Bethany McLean @bethanymac12]

The classic Silicon Valley libertarian wants to flee government meddling. What if today's most powerful tech titan doesn't want to shrink the state, but rather absorb it?

[Chicago Booth Review @chicagoboothrev]

Is capitalism delivering for the majority?

Chicago Booth’s Steve Kaplan joins #Capitalisnt hosts @zingales and @bethanymac12 argues in support of the merits of American capitalism.

https://t.co/9bIm3xNDPs