Michael Fitzsimmons

ConocoPhillips: More Than Just a Great Stock

i agree, it's seldom you can buy a company of COP's quality when the PE damn near equals the dividend yield. in the longer term, the America has no alternative but to migrate transportation solutions toward US produced natural gas. that said, the American gov, media, and people (outside of picken's following) have yet to figure this out, however, within the next few years, it will become ever more apparent that we have no choice but to leverage US natural gas production. when we DO figure it out, COP's value will also become more apparent as the US's second largest natural gas producer.

Government Inflation Data at Odds with Reality

Like most out of the Bush administration - you cannot believe anything. Certainly the government has a vested interest in fudging the inflation numbers:

- allowing the Fed to cut interest rates so they can bail out wall street by letting them pay back their debt with ever cheaper dollars

- keeping the inflation indexes lower so that I-bonds and other government issued inflation protected securities don't have to pay higher interest rate yields.

i though i was so smart a few years back when i realized peak oil was going to drive oil prices skyrocketing higher and therefore inflation would scream. so, i bought a small position in i-bonds. what a joke. my theory was, of course, correct. but i never figured the government would be so blatant about fudging the inflation numbers. our government is a house of cards, and the last 8 years have been "lost years" in terms of anything regarding economics:

- biggest deficits in history
- biggest drop in the US dollar's value in history
- no energy policy to deal with peak oil

this is why i am no longer a republican. the republican party is a complete joke, and there is nothing conservative about these guys. it is the most RADICAL government in the US history. we will be lucky to recover. not sure it's possible. one thing is for certain, if we don't get a sane energy policy soon, as in now, we're toast!