Longreads

At exactly 10:53 p.m. on Saturday, November 5, 2011, Joe and Mary Reneau were in the bedroom of their whitewashed and brick-trimmed home, a two-story rambler Mary's dad custom-built 43 years ago.…

Saulius L/Shutterstock "I know this is not the first time this country has debated how to reduce gun violence," President Obama said in his State of the Union address on Tuesday. "But this time is…

The financial crisis had many causes—too much borrowing, foolish investments, misguided regulation—but at its core, the panic resulted from a lack of transparency. The reason no one…

The GM Janesville assembly plant, which closed in 2008, stands vacant with security guarding it in Janesville, Wisconsin. Andre J. Jackson/Detroit Free Press/ZumaThis story first appeared on the…

On April 20, 2005, George W. Bush signed into law a bankruptcy bill that had been pending in Congress for eight years. The bill was written by credit-industry lobbyists, shopped to their friends in Congress, and supported by tens of millions of dollars in lobbying and campaign contributions. It might be dismissed as just one more piece of highly focused special-interest legislation except for the damaging vision of middle-class America that it reinforced: irresponsible people consumed by appetites for goods they don’t need, who think little of cost, and who would rather file for bankruptcy than repay their lawful debts.