Q:  Because you mentioned the dollar, do you think the government budget policy is likely to change over the long run?

A: If I felt that the United States was the only country with this policy, I would be even more worried. But every country in the world, with a couple of exceptions, is doing the same thing - talking about inflation on the one hand and printing currency on the other. My own view on China is that they can’t get along without us and we can’t get along without them.

But one topic that’s very interesting for us is Energy Master Limited Partnerships. Almost every one of them we own has increased its dividend every single quarter for the last 3 years, which is quite exceptional. They are yielding an average of over 6.5% and 80% of that is tax free as a return of principal.

People keep telling us that if a business is good, competition will increase and results will deteriorate. But there is an interesting point to that argument. Regardless of how rich you are, you cannot build a pipeline to Philadelphia because nobody’ will let you knock down the houses, the hospitals, and the schools to get it there. If you do have a right of way already, you can put another pipeline next to your present one, but nobody else can.

It is also wrong to think that when the price of oil goes up and down, your profits will go up or down because the government sets the toll they can charge per barrel that they put through the pipelines. So we think that these partnerships are a high-quality investment.

My current favorite is Natural Resources Partners. The company owns more coal mines than any other enterprise in America. They have been increasing their dividend about 15% a year. They don’t mine the coal but they lease the mines to big producers like Peabody, so they don’t take the environmental risks and avoid all the other problems that the producers have. They get paid a royalty per ton which continues to rise.

Q:  How do you approach researching the companies? Would you give us the size of your universe and the size of your portfolio?

A: From the 151 companies that have been raising dividends 10% or more, you would probably be amazed to learn that 37 companies have increased their dividend by more than 20% a year for 10 years in a row. So there are solid companies that still have an optimistic outlook about their business.

There are over 70 positions with annual dividend increases of more than 15% and the rest are between 10% and 15%. But the list changes slightly every year.

We are holding 42 companies in the fund right now. Our turnover rate is a relatively low 24%. The average increase of the stocks in our fund in both 2005 and 2006 was over 18% per year.

Q:  Do you think that it is advisable for the U.S. to not just look for ways to get more oil, but also to cut down consumption? Europe has invested for decades in alternative transport such as railroads, while in the U.S. it’s virtually impossible to go from Atlanta to Boston.

A: I could not agree more. Just look at the tax per gallon all over Europe. There is a $2 per gallon tax on gasoline. It is stupid that we don’t do that because that would cut down the consumption. When you go to Europe, you see a lot of little cars, not a lot of big cars. We too must have more cars getting 50 miles a gallon within 2 or 3 years. That’s going to cut down oil consumption tremendously.