Origins of the mortgage crisis listen

Tags: Mortgage crisis

In her new book, "Our Lot", journalist Alyssa Katz goes back to the origins of the mortgage crisis that has wrecked the economy. She describes the real estate bubble as a decades-long product of social and financial engineering by the U.S. Government to make the American dream of home ownership possible for those who had never been able to attain it before.

Both community activists and Wall Street bankers played pivotal roles. Katz writes about 2 prominent such people in her opening chapter, beginning with an Indiana woman named Gale Cincotta.