Until a few weeks ago, it’s likely that many people would have guessed that Freddie Mac was comedian Bernie Mac’s younger brother.

A bad year for homeowners meant a good year for John A. Paulson. Paulson, the founder and president of the hedge fund Paulson & Company, made $3.7 billion last year, according to an annual listing of the 50 most highly paid hedge fund managers.

Bear Stearns, drowning in debt from its mortgage-related investments, received a lifeline yesterday from the Federal Reserve of New York.

Acting through JPMorgan Chase, the fed provided a line of credit to keep the bank solvent.

Difficult times for a company mean difficult times for its board of directors.

And these certainly are difficult times for Washington Mutual, the nation’s largest savings and loan.

Because of losses related to subprime mortgage lending, the Seattle-based firm has closed operations, cut jobs, slashed its dividend, and watched the price of its stock plummet to its lowest level in more than 11 years, closing Friday at $13.07.

For much of the past year, IndyMac has been zigging while the rest of the troubled mortgage industry has been zagging.

The big California-based lender built a retail force of almost 1,500 people, largely by hiring workers from failed and troubled mortgage competitors.

Friday, however, the tables turned. IndyMac said it plans to cut 1,000 jobs, 10 percent of its total workforce, trim its stock dividend and possibly post a loss in the third quarter as it converts almost all of its business away from riskier borrowers to conforming loans that can be dealt to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

It’s one thing when stock market analysts knock your company’s prospects. Even worse when your auditor does the same.

Subprime lender NovaStar Financial cancelled plans to raise $101 million Tuesday saying its auditor, Deloitte & Touche LLP , wanted to include a statement in the company’s financial disclosures about the “uncertainty of NovaStar’s ability to continue as a going concern.”

Accredited Home Lenders, the troubled mortgage company with two former S&L regulators on its board, lost a key director this week.

A. Jay Meyerson, the former CEO of Aames Investment Corp., resigned effective immediately. Meyerson joined Accredited board’s last October, when Accredited acquired Aames.

Thursday, a day after Meyerson resigned, Lone Star Fund informed Accredited that it was lowering the price of its takeover offer to $8.50 a share. In June, Lone Star offered $15.10 a share.

While other funds struggle through the mortgage crisis, a hedge fund founded by former Harvard Management Co. CEO Jack R. Meyer is flourishing.

Meyer and former Harvard colleagues run Convexity Capital Management, which makes trading bets that benefit from volatility. The fund, started last year, had disappointing early results. But recent market swings have brought a turnaround.

Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co., a major subprime lender, said Wednesday it would close 65 branches around the country and fire 1,600 workers as the mortgage meltdown continues to spread.

For at least two of the company’s directors, it must have seemed like deja vu all over again.

Richard Pratt and Bowers Espy were S&L regulators in the early 1980s as that industry was in crisis.

GreenPoint Mortgage, the latest casualty of the mortgage meltdown, was once overseen by a director of Freddie Mac, the giant public company chartered by Congress to bolster home lending.

Thomas S. Johnson was elected to Freddie Mac’s board in 2004 when he was CEO of GreenPoint Financial, then parent of GreenPoint Mortgage. That year, GreenPoint Financial was acquired by North Fork Bancorp for $6.3 billion. Capital One acquired North Fork last year for $13.2 billion.