Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.

I'm your host Russ Roberts of George Mason University and Stanford University's Hoover

Institution.

Our website is econtalk.org, where you can subscribe, find other episodes, comment on this podcast,

and find links to other information related to today's conversation.

Our email address is mailadicontalk.org, we'd love to hear from you.

At the end of today's podcast, there'll be a post script on the current financial situation,

so please keep listening.

My guest today is Arnold Kling, who blogs at econlog, which is also found here at the Library

of Economics and Liberty at econlive.org.

And his latest book is Crisis of Abundance, which we've talked about in a previous podcast.

Arnold, welcome back to econtalk.

Thanks, Russ.

Our topic today is a little bit unusual.

Here at econtalk, we try and stay away from things that are hot news topics for a whole

variety of reasons, because I know a number of you listen to these way into the future.

So, we are taping this on September the 12th, 2008, when financial markets here in the

United States are in something of a little bit of turmoil, and what is going to happen

exactly is not clear, and we're going to talk about them as best we can today, with

particular focus on Freddie, Mac, and Fannie Mae, which have been in the news very much lately.

And in particular, I think myself, and probably many of you have no real idea of what those

agencies do, those organizations, and how we got to where we are today.

...