The other day I had lunch with a “brain trust,” of sorts.  Participants included a retired executive from an aerospace company.  This guy helped design and build many of the reconnaissance satellites that the U.S. has launched.  There was a senior executive from a large steel company.  There was a venture capitalist who made his first $500 million in the software industry, and who now has much of that wealth spread around in biotech and nanotech startups.  There was a former senior political appointee who worked in the Treasury Department.  And then there was me.

People of good intentions and progressive predilection are scratching their heads wondering just how President Barack Obama managed to turn himself into George W. Bush Lite with sugar-on-top just twelve weeks after that fateful walk down the US Capitol’s east stairway to the waiting helicopter. I’m hardly the first observer to note that Mr. Obama’s actions in the face of an epochal finance fiasco and economic collapse are a mere extension of the pre-January-20 policies, carried out by much the same cast of characters.

The Russia-Ukraine battle for natural gas played out well last year for these three natural resource stocks, and it’s happening again. J. Christoph Amberger of Today’s Financial News predicted back in November of 2008 that the Ukraine would go into a “deep freeze” and that forecast came to pass at the beginning of this year.

Investors are “bloodied and confused,” says Warren Buffett, “much as though they were small birds that had strayed into a badminton game…”

As I ponder the twin taxpayer shakedowns of the “stimulus” bill and “Son of TARP,” a couple of impertinent questions cross my mind.

Stocks are up 20% from their November lows. And they could go much higher. But don’t be fooled by this “sucker’s rally”. The Dow is on its way to 5,000. The Fed is trying to stop it. But remember, the Fed caused this crash. And it was government ‘rescues’ that made the 1930s Depression so Great…

No question, President George Bush’s approval ratings have pulled an “Enron.”

Get ready for more ridiculous lawsuits. As I said yesterday, Bush signed a bill amending an obscure law called the “Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act,” earlier this year. The bill makes it easier for terrorist victims to recover civil damages. But what this bill will really do is launch an orgy of lawsuits that have nothing to do with terrorism.

As Barack Obama closes in on the Democratic presidential nomination, investors should focus their minds around one uncomfortable fact: Whether it’s Obama or Republican John McCain who wins the White House, expect some policy changes that won’t sit well with investors – or with the U.S. economy.

It is always impolite to ask a lady her age. But the oil bull market is certainly no lady, besides which, we know she is about ten years old.