Nick Fountain

So all in all, do you think these policies are going to move the needle on housing affordability?

Big pause.

Sigh.

Yeah, not that conclusive.

Though I do think we have learned something important here, which is that how Wall Street investors play into the cost of housing depends on the context, where we are in time, where we are in the country, and who investors are buying from and who they're renting to.

Yes, I go to bed every night thanking this complex financial instrument for my job.

Is that weird?

Yeah, I'm going to be honest.

We were expecting more on housing affordability during Trump's big speech in Davos last week.

It was billed by the White House as the rollout of his housing affordability plan.

But it ended up being not very focused on that.

But he did bring up a concrete new program.

But what he was talking about in Davos was his most direct intervention into the mortgage market so far.

He's attempting to move the market for mortgage-backed securities.

To help explain what those are and what he hopes to do, we called up this person.

Who are you and what do you do?

All right.

Susan is a big deal in the mortgage world.

So weird that they can just manifest this without doing anything.

It's like when I try to tickle my toddler and I'm just like, I'm not even tickling them, but I'm moving my fingers.