Bethany McLean

    Contributor

    Bethany McLean is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and bestselling co-author of "The Smartest Guys in the Room: the Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron" and "All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis." She has also written two books for Columbia Global Reports. “Shaky Ground: The Strange Saga of the U.S. Mortgage Giants" was published in 2015, and she has a new book on fracking coming out in the fall of 2018.

  • ‘The battle has started’: Ex-Credit Suisse banker’s fraud victims still want an apology

    In the years since the financial crisis, big banks, including Credit Suisse, increasingly have touted their expertise in wealth management. But what if these banks can't manage the risks tied to managing money?

  • 'We’re coming after you': Inside the merchant cash advance industry

    In the past decade since the financial crisis, the merchant cash advance business exploded.

  • 'I can't get enough': The legacy of a fracking billionaire who fed on risk

    Bethany McLean tells the story of Aubrey McClendon, the now-deceased CEO of Chesapeake Energy, who was considered by his peers to be a buffoon, a con man of sorts, and maybe even a fraud.

  • Disgraced ex-BofA exec raises uncomfortable questions about #MeToo

    When Omeed Malik, an executive at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, was fired at the start of 2018, he quickly became the poster child for #MeToo on Wall Street. Now he's suing his former firm.

  • Wells Fargo's scandals just won’t die

    Wells Fargo has had its share of scandals lately. But lurking in the background is a largely forgotten lawsuit involving Wells’ overdraft practices. No wonder it’s been forgotten: The case has been tied up in torturous litigation for almost a decade.

  • Why white-collar crooks may be cheering this Jeff Sessions memo

    Attorney General Jeff Sessions is focusing on violent crime, not corporate crime. Late last week, President Donald Trump’s budget blueprint was released. Among many other headline-grabbing cuts—the EPA, Meals on Wheels, climate change funding, legal aid for low-income households, and on, and on, and on—it also included a less-noticed $1.1 billion, or 4%, cut to the Department of Justice.

  • The strange deal 2 drug makers had over a medicine with a skyrocketing price

    Former Valeant CEO Michael Pearson (L-R), former CFO Howard Schiller and Pershing Square Capital Management CEO Bill Ackman testify about price spikes in pharmaceuticals before the Senate on, U.S. April 27, 2016. A drug called Syprine has played a starring role in the collapse of Valeant (VRX), the rogue pharmaceutical company that lost 90% of its value after revelations of price-gouging and other questionable tactics. Wilson’s disease has been diagnosed in only about 2,000-3,000 people in the US, according to the National Organization for Rare Disorders.

  • Steve Mnuchin: Goldman Sachs royalty and 'culture carrier'

    Can you maybe almost feel a teeny tiny bit of pity for Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s pick as Treasury Secretary? Despite Trump’s tough-on-banks rhetoric, he picked a banker, and a former Goldman Sachs banker at that.

  • Fannie and Freddie's fate depends on whether Trump goes with John or Jeb

    Trump supporter and hedge fund manager John Paulson would like to see Fannie and Freddie reconstituted. During the 2008 financial crisis, with home prices tumbling, mortgage holders defaulting, and the stock prices of the GSEs tumbling, they were taken over by the government and put into a state called conservatorship, where they have languished for the last eight years.