There is a story about an oil driller who died and found himself standing at the pearly gates of heaven in front of Saint Peter.
"May I go in," asked the oil driller?
"Look at all those other drillers ahead of you, just inside the gates," answered Saint Peter. "You'll have to wait till we process them. Some big deepwater event."
The oil driller fidgited for a minute, and then yelled: "Oil discovered in Hell!" When they heard this, all the other drillers jumped up and ran back through the pearly gates straight down to Hell.
Saint Peter turned to the oil driller standing before him and said, "Well, there's no line ahead of you now. I guess you can go in."
But, the oil driller turned away and started to follow the other oil drillers down to Hell. "Why are you going that way," asked Saint Peter?
"I can't take a chance," replied the oil driller. "There might be some truth in that rumor!"
This is an appropriate prelude to letting the board know that we took about one third of our Fannie and Freddie profits and bought their preferred stock once again on the recent pullback.
