Labor Day Post

DAILY QUOTE: "When you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat." -Ronald Reagan.

STOCK OF THE DAY: Foster Wheeler (FWLT)--International energy infrastructure company.

Sorry, die-hard short sellers and panicky commodity based hedge funds, but even if the price of crude oil drops another 20 bucks to about $90 a barrel, FWLT will still have a backlog of projects that is currently in excess of $1 Billion of its market cap! (The CEO has said only at $70 a barrel would there be a chance some of the company's projects would be canceled.)

This is a great company that has executed quarter after quarter and beat the earnings estimates of so-called hotshot wall street analysts. With the emerging markets continuing to grow impressively (thus the need for infrastructure), even if not quite at the break-neck speed they once were a short while ago, FWLT offers both exceptional value and growth. I own the stock currently and will use any more weakness to add more shares.

POLITICS:

I am openly endorsing the McCain/Palin ticket. First off, let me take the central cop-out argument of the left wing head on here. John McCain does not represent a third term of George W. Bush in many respects. The main difference between the two is that I believe McCain will be far more fiscally conservative in terms of spending than Bush has been. For all of the Bush-Bashing from the left, one of the first people Bush alienated was the core conservative (like me) who believes in low taxes (well done, Bush, by the way--genuinely) but also low spending to justify those low taxes. Moreover, Bush was a little too reckless in disregarding Geroge Washington's concept of no foreign entitlement re the Iraq War.

I also believe choosing Sarah Palin as his VP candidate was a brilliant calculated risk that currently has liberals scrambling more than their organic eggs. Palin is a young, intelligent, well-spoken and tough conservative woman. I saw her on CNBC's Kudlow & Company earlier in the summer, and I was blown away by how concise and confident she was. At the time, I mentioned to POD Blog contributor Roy St. Pittsburgh that I thought she would make a great dark-house VP choice. Hey, Sometimes I get lucky.

(As an aside about Bush, I will say this though: He faced unprecedented situations that our country hasn't seen in at least a generation (9/11, Katrina, etc...). He also remained a class act, never stooping to the level of the high school drama queens of the liberal media. The jury will be out for quite some time as far as his super-long term legacy (100 years from now +), but for now he's the classic example of the goat in American folklore).