6: Guaranteed to fail: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the debacle of mortgage finance

Viral Acharya, Matthew Richardson interviewed by Viv Davies, 13 May 2011Viral Acharya and Matthew Richardson of New York University talk to Viv Davies about their book ‘Guaranteed to Fail: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Debacle of Mortgage Finance’. The financial collapse of these government sponsored enterprises led to a government intervention that has already cost US taxpayers around $150 billion. The authors discuss how these institutions collapsed, why housing finance in the US is broken and what now needs to be done to reform the system. The interview was recorded in London in May 2011.