Today I wanted to point you guys over to a website that I feel makes a ton of sense and is defintely worth your time. WWW.pickensplan.com T Boone Pickens talks about our addiction to foreign oil, how much it costs our country, and a plan to reduce our dependence on foreign oil with in 10 years. The basic idea is that wind energy can replace natural gas for electricity generation, the natural gas saved can be used to power our cars, thus reducing the united states dependence on foreign oil. Obviously Boone Pickens stands to profit hansomely if his plan is acted on but I still think it makes a lot of sense. You be the judge.

A few weeks ago I wrote a posting on achieving success, well I wanted to stress the importance of having goals. The reason you will set these goals is to help focus your resources and shape your plans. You are also going to want to make sure you not only have goals for your business career, but your personal life as well. It is all about balance.

Remember to break down your goals into small intervals to make sure that you show yourself that you are making progress and be sure to document everything. What I have been doing is adding something to my daily To-Do list that gets me one step closer to my monthly goal.

So stop procrastinating and put a plan together to make yourself better. In the words of John Dewey “Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another.”

We all have heard of Warren Buffet and the spectacular returns of his investment vehicle Berkshire Hathaway.  The problem is it is too late for most people to be even a single share at current prices.  Since I can’t buy Berkshire I decided to search for an alternative that could possibly end up being the next Berkshire. 

What I looked for was an excellent money manager, insurance backed so they can invest the “float”, value investors, diversified, and focused on increasing shareholder value.  The company that I feel meets all of the requirements is Markel.  MKL is an insurance company with a top notch chief investment officer whose portfolio has returned 20% regularly.  In my mind it is like a small version of Berkshire and definitely worth a look.

“The MLP sector today could be on a similar trajectory to REITS in the late 1980s and I believe that tremendous growth lies ahead given the strong need for new energy infrastructure investment,”… Mary Lyman, Executive Director of the Coalition of Publicly Traded Partnerships

If the economy continues to weaken, your best stock bets might be companies with stable cash-flows that pay higher dividends then you get from CDs.  If this concept is appealing, you might want to check out MLP’s or Master Limited Partnerships.  Although not corporations they trade on exchanges, just like stocks.  MLPs have General partners and limited partners. The General partner manages the operation and receives a percentage off the top.  The limited partners are the individual investors. 

I have seen MLPs paying dividends that range from 5% all the way to 14%.  The reason the yields are so high is because they don’t pay corporate taxes.  Instead, the income is passed on to the limited partners.

There are potential tax issues.  MLPs don’t send out 1099 forms, they send out a schedule K-1 form and the income is reported differently on tax returns.  This is a concern for some investors who consider the special forms too complicated.  I would discuss the potential tax issues with a CPA prior to investing.  That being said here is a list of High yielding MLPs that I found:

I was going to write about finance classes in our school systems tonight but I saw something interesting on my television. If you have Comcast cable you can go to channel 889 (at least in my area) and watch GM on demand. Basically what this is is live version of Edmunds. You can view detailed information about any GM car that you are interested in. It has everything from specs to virtual test drives. I think this is a great avenue for car companies to display their products. I will be interested to see if any other readers have this channel and to see if any other manufacturers follow in GMs footsteps.

We set up an AIM account for anyone that wishes to chat when we are online. Our Screen name is JNKWealthGroup. Feel free to add us to your Friends!

If you don’t know already Starbucks is back to providing free WiFi access,well sort of. In order to receive access for free Wifi you must obtain a Starbucks rewards card (aka gift card). You must use or reload your gift card every month in order to keep your free WiFi access. Its not really a bad deal if you think about it..if your going to Starbucks to use their access you are most likely going there to drink some coffee too!

The access is through AT&T, and is really annoying to connect to for the fact that it takes a good five minutes for the Wifi access page to appear. Other then then that the speed is great once you get on.

Oh yeah and when you sign up for the rewards card, you get a great coupon(about 3 weeks later) for a free beverage of your choice.

I think this is a great step in the right direction to get Starbucks back on top!

First of all, I apologize for not posting in a bit. John is on vacation and I have been under the weather this week. Anyway I’m back!

I was reading a posting on The Wealth Page Blog (Read it here) this week on a situation where a business has failed to provide the service it should have. It was funny that I was just talking to my wife about how we almost accept poor quality products today. I really didn’t notice it until we started ordering furniture and other items for my son who is coming soon. I would say to my wife well nothing is going to come perfect. It really started to make me think, maybe its not worth it to be perfect.

If anyone knows of any studies that analysis the cost benefit of either providing perfect service or allowing imperfect products to go out to customers.

In an effort to offer our readers the best and most diverse advice we would like to add some new authors. We are looking for people who can contribute and write on this blog on a regular basis. If you have strong knowledge in any of the below topics and are interested in authoring articles please contact us and provide a sample of your writing.

Finance, Management, SEO, Blogging, Marketing, Technology, or Entrepreneurship.

We are looking for a maximum of 5 additional authors. All writers will have the option of posting their picture, bio and link(s) to their other blog(s)
on the authors page. So you’ll get traffic from this blog, and a link back (many links back),

Currently this is not a paid position but very well could turn into one pending the success of the site.

The above is not a one-time “guest blogging” gig, although we are looking for some guest writers to post as often as their schedules allow.

The market has pretty much gone down in a straight line for 7 months. In bear markets fear takes over and causes stocks too drop way beyond rational prices. This same fear creates buying opportunities in excellent franchises that would never exist in good times. I put together a shopping list for myself that I wanted to share with everyone. Warren Buffet says if the company is going to be around in twenty years it’s probably a good buy now. Think about this when you’re looking at the businesses below.

Too cheap:

CSCO- Broad band shortage will continue and they are right in the middle of that.

ATT- AT&T 4.9% yield. Enterprise value/EBITDA of 6. Sports a forward PE of 10 while Competitor Verizon is trading at 12.4 x 2009 estimates. Looks cheap too me.

HD- Home depot- 3.9% dividend yield. Enterprise value/EBITDA of 6. I would love to buy a business for 6x cash-flows.

DPS- Doctor Pepper-Third largest beverage company; Trading at 10x earnings while Coke and Pepsi trade around 19x earnings.

PAYX- Has traded at 30x earnings for the past 6 years. It is now trading at 20x trailing earnings and 17x forward estimates.

My hiding places that seem to be working in these terrible times:

MRK

SGP

AMGN

NVS

PFE

GILD