When you buy a stock for the longer term,the most important information is profitability and ability to continue to make money. The financial position and ability to generate cash is your concern. Next you will concern yourself with management and their ability to execute on their business plan. At some point you will have done a basic SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis. Depending on how many shares you buy will depend on the length on the analysis. If you take a classic case of people for pipelines and those against you need to know something about the activists and what is their abilities to slow down or stop what you think the company should be doing. In the case of the pipeline, the Keystone Pipeline is designed to send oil that is trapped in sand or oil sands down to a refinery which can handle that type of crude. The alternative is the railway, but it is less expensive to send by pipeline.

The Keystone pipeline is also a symbol of global warming and it has many different views attached to it. At he moment, very few people will give up on their lifestyle but they can be concerned about global warming which is happening. A book which discusses the issue is Oil and Honey by Bill McKibben published by Henry Holt and Company, NY, 2013. The honey is he works with bee keeping and seeing what is happening to the bees and the environment helps deal with global warming issues. Mr. McKibben is a founded of 350.org which sends information from an environmental standpoint. On the other side was the Chamber of Commerce lobby which is one of the biggest lobbyist in Washington as well as the oil industry interests. Somewhere leaning to the oil industry are politicians. To play the game, the environmentalist have to learn how to lobby and which rules and regulations to press the politicians.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, as an investor you are more concerned with the financial results on a consistent basis. As a person living in the globe you are concerned with global warming and hopefully your investments and your view of the world mesh together. If they do not, then you have to worry how does the other side play to change the nature of your investments? Books such as Oil and Honey will give your a view of the other side; do not worry they are people just like you.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.