In 2008 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, mortally wounded from losses on loans acquired during the bubble, were placed in "conservatorship", a halfway house between bankruptcy and outright nationalisation.
By taking the lead, the Treasury took the pressure off the Federal Reserve. Quite rightly, the "conservatorship" structure has ensured that the chief executives went and the shareholders suffered.
The two were taken into "conservatorship", a form of government ownership, in 2008 and have been put to work ever since.
letter of conservatorship