Well done. My reaction to the title question was NO, because government should not own ANY company or any part of them. But we live in the real world, and I must say that I have many of the same feeling about how govenment will take good intentions and ideas and turn them around. Better to have limited government, but then again, we do live in the real world. Boy, do we need CHANGE here.

You sound like Karl Marx.

Balance is the key, as with so many other things. Gold and silver have a place in your capital structure. The precentage of the whole has changed from 3% back in the 80's and 90's to between 5% and 10% today. I own some individual stocks and intend to hold them. I have always been a buy and hold guy. I also have the broad market mutual funds that are suggested in this article. These are excellent places to begin and hold. Also part of the balance are emergency supplies. Financial disaster can make financial instruments worthless, or worth a lot less to the point where you don't want to sell even if you could. In a disaster, even gold and silver have limits. Consumables may be out of reach except by trade with another consumable.

In many ways. Just one of them: Just think about what President Obama might do if he thinks that he will lose in November. What will he do if he DOES lose? Worse, what will he do if he wins? It is only a matter of how badly we lose. And he really does not give a damn. After all, he signed the bill so that "YOU can find out what is in it." He did not say this, but he did sign it the day after it passed. Actions speak louder than words.

Socialist policies are yeilding socialist results. I just hope that President Obama really believes the crap he is saying about how well we are doing. I am worried about what he might do if he believes that he will lose in November. He does not strike me as being a graceful loser.

Margaret Thatcher was so correct. It is easy to use other people's money and resources, which is EXACTLY what socialism is. Of course, it is great if YOU are the person who gets to spend the resources.

The Obama administration is open on ALL energy sources. As long as they are NOT: OIL, COAL, Natural Gas, or nuclear. Otherwise, the energy source is good.

This is all in line with President Obama's ideology. Oil is bad. Make it more expensive and people will develop alternatives. I do suspect that he will change his mind sometime prior to the election. He will make it close enough to the election to make an impact on people's minds, but not far enough away for it to progress. This way, after re-election, he can stop it again. The best of both worlds.

President Obama is no friend of Israel. I don't understand how people can't see this, but we all tend to see what we want to.

I cannot agree with anyone on EVERYTHING. I can find a number of places where I disagee, as I am sure than everyone else can. I will say that I tend to agree more than I disagree.