#243: The Frankenstein Mortgage from NPR: Planet Money Podcast

The 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage -- the bedrock of American home ownership -- is a weird loan. In an ordinary market, you'd have to pay a really high interest rate to get a 30-year fixed, if you could get it at all. Only the intervention of the government -- and the creation of Fannie Mae -- turned the loan into America's plain-vanilla mortgage. On today's Planet Money, Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera (authors of All the Devils Are Here, a book on the financial crisis) walk us through the 30-year-fixed and the history of Fannie and Freddie. And they talk about where we go from here. Listen to the podcast.

The Daily Show - November 16, 2010 - Bethany McLean, Joe Nocera

Bethany McLean & Joe Nocera Episode #15147 Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera talk about what they would have done differently to prevent the financial collapse. (07:36) Tags: Bethany McLean, Joe Nocera, interviews, books, economy, Wall Street, real estate, housing, gambling, money, history, business. Aired: 11/16/10 Viewed: 45,884.

You can view the whole show, here. See also: All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis, Good Guys and Bad Guys: Behind the Scenes with the Saints and Scoundrels of American Business (and Everything in Between), A Piece of the Action: How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class, Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America