Even as mortgage juggernauts Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reported positive quarterly results for the first time since the real estate crash, there are still those in the rank and file evincing the same moral turpitude that precipitated the collapse in the first place.

A reader sent in this observation, overheard at the Peet’s Coffee and Tea in the Rockridge neighborhood of Oakland, CA. Apparently, a 30-something working on his laptop received a call from the office that resulted in some shop talk with a colleague named ?Stacy.? The dude starts in about having moved $400,000 into an account and other bits of info that made it clear to the reader that he’s in the mortgage finance racket. Then Stacy drops the bomb that an ?auditor was in today.?

“Yeah, sorry I missed the auditor,” he snarks. ?Then Stacy must have expressed some concern for the state of their books because he reassures her with “Oh don’t worry about it, it’s just rules and regulations, there are a million of them, just make sure you have the big stuff covered.” ?Then in his most condescending manner, he says “Look Stacy, if we tried to follow all the rules, we’d never make any money in this business.”

D?oh. Or dough? Or duh? In the very least, could the guy be a little more discrete about his ethical challenges? For Peet’s sake…