Good points about the CD's. There's always a chance the stock could go down, such as in SJT's case, it wouldn't surprise me if the stock dropped to 21 before resuming it's uptrend. It would fare worse if natural gas dropped much below 5 bucks, which isn't expected, but still, risk is risk. These type of investments are meant to be multi-year at minimum.
As for the dividend issue, I know my father only paid 15% on the SJT dividends. From what I've read, virtually all dividend producing stocks are taxed at 15%, except some REITs or in the case of someone owning preferred shares, which can bring up issues. I'll have to look into that further.
This whole issue got me thinking... that old saying "it takes money to make money" .. man if I just had $500,000 ... a drop in the bucket for many of the elite, I could make it last my entire life through rather conservative investments... there are so many people out there that would just completely waste the entire sum in a short period of time...