They are shrewd survivors - onetime federal bureaucrats who oversaw the savings-and-loan bailout under then-President George H.W. Bush. Now, almost 20 years later, they are working for the other side, advising banks and private investors who are seeking to profit from the latest and greatest government bailout.

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.