STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
A veteran of JPMorgan Chase faces the job of cleaning up one of the biggest disasters of the 2008 financial meltdown.
DAVID GREENE, HOST:
Donald Layton left JPMorgan in 2004, well before the bank's latest embarrassment. Layton has been a lobbyist for Wall Street, and now he becomes chief executive of Freddie Mac. That's the giant mortgage firm that had to be rescued and taken over by the government.
INSKEEP: Freddie and its partner firm Fannie Mae were created by the government decades ago, and are crucial to the real estate markets. So when that market collapsed, so did they.
Taxpayers have spent about $170 billion bailing out the companies, which are currently overseen by a federal regulator.
GREENE: And Layton will be Freddie's fourth CEO since the meltdown. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
