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Ed Andrews ought to have known better.

Andrews is a longtime economics reporter for The New York Times. He’s covered interest rates and housing markets and mortgage lending; the Fed and Wall Street, busts and bubbles. So he should have known.

But life is complicated. Dreams are not always sensible. And even Ed Andrews got in over his head in the housing bubble. A house he couldn’t afford. Mortgage payments that got away from him. Too much alimony. Too little income.

Now he is one of the ocean of Americans waiting for foreclosure. This hour, On Point: The story of Ed Andrews, busted.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Ed Andrews joins us from New York.  A veteran economics reporter for The New York Times, he tells his personal subprime mortgage story in his new book “Busted: Life Inside the Great Mortgage Meltdown.”

Read an excerpt from the book that appeared in The New York Times Magazine this past Sunday.

A Florida development. (Photo: fallsroad/Flickr)

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It’s cold up north, and the world dreams of Florida. Warm, sunny, green and beckoning.

But the Sunshine State is in a world of trouble, and the trouble is all about real estate. When houses were hot here, they were very hot. Maybe the hottest. And as long as there was a new buyer chasing the sun, it seemed it would go on forever.

Until it didn’t. New Yorker writer George Packer calls it the “Ponzi State.” He’s been out in the home foreclosure deserts of Florida, watching a world fall apart.

This hour, On Point: On the front lines of the meltdown in Florida.

You can join the conversation. Have you seen it? Do you live it? The dystopia of life in the housing meltdown in the sunshine state? What about your state? Will Florida come back? When? How?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

George Packer joins us from New York.  A staff writer for The New Yorker, he’s reported on war in Iraq, atrocities in Sierra Leone, civil unrest on the Ivory Coast. He’s the author of several books, including “The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq.” His big article in this week’s issue is “The Ponzi State: Florida’s foreclosure disaster” (subscription required). You can watch Packer talk about the piece at newyorker.com. His New Yorker blog is Interesting Times.

Logos of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

There is giant news in the world of finance, your mortgage and your taxes today. The federal government is moving to rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — the huge and last week shaky backers of nearly half of all American mortgage debt, five trillion in debt.

Afraid they could come tumbling down, the US Treasury Department and Federal Reserve stepped in last night with a call for federal billions to keep them running.

America’s rolling financial crisis just entered a hair-raising new chapter. So, what are we learning?

This hour On Point: in the cauldron of crisis, with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

- Tom Ashbrook

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Guests:

James Hagerty, reporter for the Wall Street Journal
Roben Farzad, columnist and senior writer for BusinessWeek
Paul Willen, senior economist and policy advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
Robert Samuelson, columnist for Newsweek and the Washington Post.

When President Bush unveiled his administration’s plan last week to help Americans — more than a million of them — struggling to pay subprime mortgages, critics immediately called it “too little, too late.”

In communities all across the country — from the inner city to well-heeled suburbs — foreclosures are rampant. And the worst of the subprime mortgage meltdown may be yet to come.

Just in time for the holidays: bankers versus American homeowners who only wanted a piece of the American dream.

This hour, On Point: the real human cost of the subprime mortgage debacle.

-Jane Clayson

Guests:

Greg Ip, economics reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

Eric Halperin, Washington director of the Center for Responsible Lending.

Christopher Hudak, Housing Counseling Coordinator for the Boulder County Housing Authority.

Mayor Douglas Palmer, mayor of Trenton, New Jersey, and president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.