Greetings, beloved investors, and welcome to Acme Co.'s annual shareholder meeting.

As your CEO, and as your pal, I'm here to reassure you that our corporate family is as strong as ever. There's absolutely no need to panic, despite what rumors you may hear in the checkout line or the unfounded news reports blaring from cable news or even the dubious half-truths buried in our annual report.

No, Acme still stands by its founding motto: "Let he who is without stock options cash the first stub." While it has been a challenging year, I'm happy to report that my earnings have never been higher; my future, never brighter.

How did we do it? In a word, extreme accounting practices.

That's right. In a world run by numbers, Acme has taken a bold step to ensure that our bottom line has the top figures, the freshest digits, the choicest calculations. Some outmoded accountants have called our approach criminal -- we prefer to call it criminally clever.

After all, we're in business to make money, even if it's out of thin air. That's our commitment to you, the stockholder. Of course, we're speaking specifically to our holders of preferred stock. Those with common stock can kiss our worthless assets.[...]