logo
episode-header-image
Sep 2025
44m 58s

Will Privatizing The Mortgage Giants Sol...

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PODCAST NETWORK
About this episode
This week, the Trump administration announced it would sell around 5% of mortgage giants and government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The sale would begin to reintroduce the two firms to private markets after 17 years of government conservatorship. The decision to re-privatize two of the largest mortgage firms in the world, and a p ... Show More
Up next
Nov 5
What a Nobel Laureate Fears More Than AI - ft. Joel Mokyr
Technology has long been the one part of the economy that never hit a wall. No society has ever run out of ideas. Joel Mokyr, the Northwestern economic historian who won the 2025 Nobel Prize for identifying what makes growth self-sustaining, believes all of that and is frightened ... Show More
45m 29s
Oct 22
2026 Midterms: Promises vs. Economics
Everyone covers the 2026 midterms like a sports match, so we pulled the candidates' actual economic platforms and stress-tested the math. Instead of asking who is up by two points in Michigan, Texas, or South Carolina, this special 2026 Midterms Edition examines what the candidat ... Show More
37m 20s
Oct 8
The Case That Could End Super PACs - ft. Larry Lessig
Everyone blames Citizens United for super PACs. Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig says they're blaming the wrong case, and he is actually taking his argument to court. The ruling that actually created super PACs, he argues, is SpeechNow.org v. FEC, a D.C. Circuit decision iss ... Show More
47m 53s
Recommended Episodes
Apr 2018
How US home loan agencies became rental powerhouses
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are two US agencies that were set up to make mortgages more affordable to Americans. But the system was rocked during the 2008 housing slump and the government bailed them out. And now, critics say the home loan agencies are using taxpayer support to be ... Show More
8m 10s
Jun 2025
163. The $7.8 Trillion Question: Should the GSEs Be Privatized? GSEs 101
Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we sit down with Olga Gorodetsky, a Director in Capital Markets at Fannie Mae, for an in-depth conversation about the role of Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) in the U.S. housing finance system. Olga walks us through the history and missio ... Show More
1h 4m
Jun 2025
Trump’s push to privatise Fannie and Freddie
Elon Musk’s xAI is launching a $300mn share sale that values the group at $113bn, and China’s property sector woes are compounded by tariff worries. Plus, Poland’s new president is going to make life hard for the country’s prime minister, and the FT’s Amelia Pollard explains why ... Show More
11 m
Oct 2022
This Is What 7% Mortgages Will Do To the Housing Market
Thanks to the surge in mortgage rates, we've seen a historic collapse in mortgage affordability. New homebuyers are facing a massive sticker shock relative to what they could have paid just six months ago. So does this mean that house prices are due for a crash? On this episode o ... Show More
47m 42s
Oct 2024
What Does The Fed Rate Cut Mean For Mortgages?
<p>Mortgage rates aren’t directly influenced by Federal Reserve policy. However, the Fed’s recent cut likely will have a domino effect on the US housing market, say our Co-Heads of Securitized Products Research Jay Bacow and James Egan.</p><p><br></p><p>----- Transcript -----</p> ... Show More
8m 13s
Oct 2023
Mortgage Bonds Blow Up; Banks Feel Regulatory Heat
<p>The $8 trillion mortgage-bond market plunged to levels rarely seen since the global financial crisis as Treasury yields surged. To analyze why and what’s next, we’re joined by Christopher Maloney, mortgage strategist at BOK Financial Capital Markets, and Bloomberg News reporte ... Show More
37m 45s
Oct 2020
The Kushners’ Freddie Mac Loan Wasn’t Just Massive. It Came With Unusually Good Terms, Too.
<p><em>This story was <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/the-kushners-freddie-mac-loan-wasnt-just-massive-it-came-with-unusually-good-terms-too">co-published with </a><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/the-kushners-freddie-mac-loan-wasnt-just-massive-it-came-wit ... Show More
29m 56s