The First Great American Industry (Update)

Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner. We are taking a little summer break. Maybe you are too. So we wanted to play you a series from the recent archives, one of our very favorites. This comes from 2023, and the series was called Everything You Never Knew About.

Whaling. Back in the 19th century, whale hunting was big business, especially in the U.S. It created massive wealth and it drove investment in other parts of the economy, but eventually it collapsed for a variety of reasons, all of them pretty interesting. We also learned that whaling continues to affect the economy in some parts of the world. Consider this.

President Trump's Big Beautiful bill includes a provision that allows indigenous Alaskan whaling capital to claim larger tax deductions on their business operations. This provision helped Republicans get Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski to vote for the bill. So whaling is still making news, at least the news we read. This series was a lot of fun to make and I hope you enjoy listening to it.

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