31October

BP Pays a Moral Price for Securing Libyan Gas

I am stunned that people would be intentionally obtuse to a blatant blood for oil deal. You were probably screaming bloody murder over invading Iraq, but this is okay, right?
Of course it was years in the making; but it took a 'trade' to close the deal. One of my favorite companies, BP has been very good to me. But if they get stabbed in the back like the oilers in South America were, then I shall feel no sympathy.

www.timesonline.co.uk/...

BP lobbied Jack Straw before he changed mind over Lockerbie bomber.
Author is correct. End of discussion.


On Aug 26 12:10 AM realold wrote:

> My sympathies are included. But, are you saying that Scotland released the terrorist so that BP could get the contract? That is a little much and I would believe that the BP deal has been long in the making. Good for BP and the west.

Why Invest in Oil Over Alternative Energy

P.s.: Nuclear should be on the table as an ingredient in the energy casserole. France is a terrible place to live, but when I was there, it was physically very clean because of the nukes.

And I want to back up jerrydd - My brother in law has a boat powered entirely by tidal power. I made a little money trading OPTT, but maybe I should have kept it. It's free power. (But I gotta differ with him on oil as a long-term investment. Limited resources vs. growing population with increasing mobility sounds like a great investment to me. :-)

Again, do not let the arguments against wind / solar / nuclear obfuscate legitimate reasons for crude-based stock picks. We don't burn west Texas intermediate for electricity.

Why Invest in Oil Over Alternative Energy

All this about wildly spinning blades cracks me up. I have been to wind fields. There are no flocks of dead birds littering the ground. The blades sound like "whoosh! whoosh! whoosh!" hardly a screaming jet. The blades here are made with balsa, not energy-intensive aluminum. Somebody somewhere always has to come up with a B-S excuse why we can't...

Wind and solar are perfectly complemented by natural gas generators. Natural gas is as green a any fossil fuel could hope to be, the turbine generators can spool up and down qickly to counter the unstable wind & solar supply; and we have an abundance of it. Combine those 3 with any form of kinetic energy storage, and you have extremely low carbon, zero toxic, zero particulate electricity.

Why does everybody want to make a practical, clean, flexible, and screamingly obvious solution so ridiculously difficult?

The author's summation is wrong. We do not get our electricity from crude oil. Everybody knows that. Electrical generation and transportation fuel are different. People should be VERY long on oil, but the reasons have nothing to do with the non-sequitars into wind.

Exxon's Biofuel Bet

This could be an environmental (or publicity move), as well.

Many people believe that the carbon in fossil fuels are the cause of global warming. If sunlight is being used to sequester existing atmospheric CO2 into algea, and re-released during combustion, then it is a zero-sum cycle. In essence, the energy is all solar, since sunlight powers the photosynthetic sequestration.

But until algea petroleum is scaleable worldwide and financially comparable, it is no more earthchanging than BP going into solar panels... how'd that go again?

Commodities for Income Investors

I also had some MLPs, and the tax nightmare went on for a year after I got out. I made a great return buying and selling with the spot demand plus getting dividends, but that made following partnership basis even worse! Unless your sibling is willing to do your taxes for free, you will spend a *shocking* amount of effort on MLP taxes. And the IRS will dig them up every year, because none of the agents can figure them out either! The money was great, but they are a terrible hassle.


On May 30 12:28 PM April May wrote:

> An unbelievable nightmare! I own several Canadian partnerships and
> a few in America. You will receive a K-1 instead of a 1099 from each
> of them at tax time, and quite late at that (end of March, early
> April). You'll need an accountant to report those figures properly
> on your income tax return (seekingalpha.com/symbo...). I
> have prepared my own tax returns for over 40 years, and yet I was
> stumped when trying to decifer those energy K-1's. Even the IRS booklets
> didn't help me.
>
> Is it worth the tax headaches in April? I'm not sure yet. If you
> usually use a CPA at tax time, then it shouldn't matter to you.
>
>
> Why did I take a chance? High dividends lured me. But LP's dividends
> aren't really dividends in the eyes of the IRS--they are a distribution
> of the partnership's earnings and must be reported on a separate
> IRS form, and not with other "real" dividends. It is quite complicated.
> You also report other activities of the partnership such as depreciation.
>

High Yield Blue Chips Set to Rally?

"The fact that money is going into High Yield funds further supports the notion that an economic turnaround is underway and the worst is behind us."

Only when there have been consecutive months of *positive* job growth, then an economic turnaround is underway.

BP is in a technical rally, just like JNK or C. There are dozens of articles about demand destruction for crude & n.gas. I am long BP, CNK.PR.E, DXO, and GMXRP -- I bought BEFORE the rally. They are good investments, but it is better to buy shares on sale. I am slowly moving into cash and will buy more BP if it goes back under 42. Until oil consumption is up and reserves move down, their upside is limited.

Stocks to Help You Avoid the 7 Deadly Sins of Income Investors

Try FCX.PR.M:
1. China is bulking up on copper.
2. FCX profits from limited & depleting resources.
3. Copper & foreign currency reserves hedge against latent inflation
4. Pays a 10.2% dividend, which just gets better if copper demand drops.

Avoid Single Digit Midgets, Consider Gold

Why should the "government" (i.e. your taxes) "fund" (by stealing other people's [your children's money]) ANYTHING?

On Feb 19 03:53 PM yellowhoard wrote:

> Meredith Whitney has it right. The government should fund the strong
> regional banks and let them offer liquidity to American borrowers.