Monthly Archives: August 2022

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You know the system is broken when a performing arts degree costs $200,000.

I felt like I was in a cage, says Latasha Peterson. I left college with a pile of debt. The wife and mother of three struggled for years to make real progress on her enormous student loan bill. Something needed to change.

For over two years, federal student loan payments have been paused, and it appears likely President Biden will extend the pause a seventh time later this month. Millions of Americans anxiously await potential forgiveness legislation, a campaign promise that Biden promoted during his election campaign in 2020.

Peterson isnt one of them. She took matters into her own hands and got serious about her debt management. After gaining traction with her finances, fellow performing artists and creatives began asking her how she was making ends meet. The inbound interest motivated her to create Arts & Budgets, a blog of resources to help people create profitable businesses and additional income streams.

I saw a struggle, she says. I saw the problem, and it developed a passion in me to help individuals find legit ways to make more money. @ArtsAndBudgets now averages $10,000 a month in income from ten different revenue streams, and the mompreneur has used the extra funds to pay down $30,000 of her debt over the last 13 months.

If youre tired of waiting on student loan legislation and want to start taking action now, heres what Peterson wants you to know about starting a side hustle and working towards financial independence.

Growing up, debt was seen as normal in Petersons household, and she says she wasnt taught how to manage money. After college, she found herself juggling over $10,000 in credit card debt and roughly $200,000 in student loan debt with no savings.

Related: 4 Signs Biden Will Extend the Student Loan Payment Pause Again

I really wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, she says. So, I quit while my husband continued to work in corporate America. My passion for work never went away, though. Peterson and her husband started their debt payoff strategy by taking an inventory of the households finances.

Money was tight, and we only had $100 in our account at one point, she says. But my husband and I buckled down and set a budget. We really looked at our numbers, started scaling back, and committed to monthly meetings. We didnt do this when we first got married, but I really wish we had. We started to spend with purpose every dollar had a purpose.

Related: My Side Hustle Pays Me $4,300 a Month, But Im Not Putting a Penny of It Towards My $208,000 Student Loan Debt. Heres Why

Latasha also started taking her blog more seriously as a way to bring in additional income.

It was very busy at first, but I worked with my husband to figure out my schedule, she says. In the beginning, its more time than money invested with blogging. Im very big on schedules, but it was very challenging at the beginning. However, we got into the rhythm of things after about two to three months.

Peterson focused on several different blog monetization strategies, including display ads, affiliate marketing, and selling digital products. She also prioritized boosting traffic to her website.

Related: How to Make Money From Blogging in 5 Steps, According to 4 Experts Whove Done It

Over time, her efforts paid off. She increased her blogging income to over $5,000 in January 2021, which she used to start tackling debt, and now sees earnings of $10,000 or more each month.

I continued working with my husband each week to create a schedule that allowed me to spend at least two to three hours each weekday working on the blog, she says. We also worked together as a team to make sure we stuck with our budget and rewarded ourselves each time we met a debt payoff milestone.

Peterson has paid off all her credit card debt and made tremendous progress towards eliminating those pesky student loans. She believes that with patience and consistency, anyone can start a money-making blog to meet their financial goals.

While it doesnt take a large investment to start a blog, it takes a ton of time when youre just starting out, she says. But if you just stay consistent and keep writing great content for your direct target audience, youll see results for sure. If you want to fast track things, invest in a blogging coach or mentor with a proven track record or a great blogging course. Peterson recommends focusing on great content and learning about important blog concepts such as keyword research and search engine optimization (SEO).

Earning money from a blog takes time, but you can expedite the process by focusing on your niche, target audience and investing in a reputable blogging coach. Blogging courses are also an affordable way to level up your blogging knowledge and monetize sooner.

Most importantly, Peterson urges other bloggers not quite getting the results they want to keep at it.

Never compare your beginning to someone elses middle, she says. There will be days where the going may get tough, but you can turn a blog into a profitable business and start reaching your financial goals. You have to stay consistent.

If I can do it, anyone can do it.

Read more here:

Not Waiting For Biden: How This Mom of 3 with $200,000 in Student Loans Has Paid Down $30K During the Payment Freeze - NextAdvisor

When one spouse retires and the other continues to work, Its important to pay attention to the psychological component,Douglas Boneparth, founder and president of Bone Fide Wealth, tells ThinkAdvisor in an interview.

There could be everything from jealously and animosity to uncertainty all the way to everyone is happy doing their own thing, the financial advisor explains.

Boneparth, 37, has seen it all as a certified financial planner for 12 years,10 of them as an independent financial advisor.

The one-spouse-retires/one-works arrangement allows greater distribution flexibility because of the income generated by the working spouse, he notes.

From his office in downtown Manhattan, Boneparth specializes in helping millennials and has $90 million in client assets under management.

There are several pluses to half a married pair continuing to work among them, less reliance on retirement assets.

Also, it reduces income tax, and theres a possibility that the working spouses group health care plan may be superior to and more affordable than Medicare coverage, Boneparth points out.

Further, if youve stopped working, theres likely no longer the need to maintain individual disability and life insurance polices, so those premium payments will be eliminated.

Still, several other big decisions need to be made, like when each spouse should start receiving Social Security benefits and when to begin spending from a retirement account.

In the interview, Boneparth highlights the necessity of a comprehensive financial plan spanning a wide range of contingencies and options.

He has been helpingpeople since his college days, when he worked part time at his fathers Ameriprise Financial practice in Florida.

At 23, he relocated to New York to join another Ameriprise advisors business and began building his own book on the side.

He went independent in 2012, first with a partner, then going solo four years later. Two years before, he received an MBA in finance and management from NYUs Stern School of Business.

ThinkAdvisor recently interviewed Boneparth, who was on the phone from his office at 7 World Trade Center.

The advisor, whose undergrad degree is a B.S. in public relations from the University of Florida, announces that he has just rebranded retirement.

The classic definition, Im not going to work anymore, is a little antiquated, he says.

In the interview, he reveals what he believes is a more up-to-date characterization.

Here are highlights of our conversation:

THINKADVISOR: What should clients be sure not to overlook when one spouse retires and the other continues to work?

DOUGLAS BONEPARTH: Its important to pay attention to the psychological component.

There could be everything from jealousy and animosity to uncertainty all the way to everyone is happy doing their own thing.Ive seen it all.

What actually is retirement nowadays?

I just rebranded retirement to financial independence. The classic definition, Im not going to work anymore, is a little antiquated.

A better definition: Retirement is when not working is optional and affordable. Youre not reliant on [earning] income in order to live comfortably.

When one spouse in a couple plans on retiring and the other wants to continue working, for whatever reason, would that change their retirement plan?

Not necessarily. You have an advantage when one spouse keeps working: an income stream coming in, which obviously allows for a little more flexibility.

The reliance on retirement assets is less than if both were retired with no earned income being generated.

So this [strategy] actually favors planning. It provides more flexibility in what it takes to re-create the level of income needed to live a similar lifestyle during retirement years.

What are some issues that particularly need to be addressed in the retirement plan?

The best time to take Social Security; the best time to begin drawing down assets from a retirement account.

And how one spouses ability to continue earning money may provide less of a burden on the need to draw down those assets.

What about health care insurance?

Theres a lot to think about. The ability to stay on the working spouses group benefits comes into play versus enrolling in Medicare.

In some cases, you might get better health insurance through the working spouse by continuing to be on group health care than through Medicare.

This will come down to a cost-benefit analysis. If the premiums are cheaper and the benefits more robust staying on the spouses plan, then you would choose that versus Medicare.

Should the retired spouse start taking Social Security benefits while the working spouse waits to do so?

Heres my rule of thumb: If you need Social Security to live on, then, obviously, take it starting at full retirement age.

Otherwise, its likely worth waiting till age 70 to claim and get a bigger benefit assuming you think youre going to live well into your 80s.

Does income tax decrease when one of the spouses retires?

More here:

How to Plan When One Spouse Retires While the Other Keeps Working - ThinkAdvisor

Despite the reputation the Midwest gets for being "lifeless and flat," this region of the country is the most economically efficient, says Clever. In the West, the job-to-income ratio is a shocking 4.2, whereas the Midwest offers a 2.9 ratio. As housing prices increased, so did the median household income, meaning Midwesterners have a greater shot at attaining the American Dream (or, as some people are calling it, "financial independence"). So, what makes the Midwest such an affordable place to live? When it comes down to it, the reason living in the Midwest is so cheap is because of supply and demand, ToughNickel says.

Big cities are saturated with people but don't have enough housing available to accommodate all of them. This drives the housing prices (and the cost of living) up, which is why you'll notice a drastic comparison between costs of goods in San Francisco versus Cleveland, for example. The demand for property, fuel, and food is much less in the Midwest, so there's no need to create a competitive market by increasing costs. Combine all of that together, and you get a region in the U.S. that grants its citizens more financial freedom, who are free to live out the American Dream.

More here:

The Most Affordable Region In The US Where The American Dream Is Still Alive - House Digest

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By Dr. James M. Dahle, WCI Founder

Doctors are notorious for being bad investors. There are a number of reasons for this, but none of them are insurmountable. Let's go over each of them.

Doctors start their investing careers in a different place than most people. Most people start investing, or at least could start investing, at 18-22 years old with a net worth in the -$50,000 to $0 range. That's not the case for most doctors. Most doctors start their investing career at 30-35 with a net worth in the -$100,000 to -$500,000 range. That's a big barrier. Many doctors don't even get back to broke before 40, only to discover that compound interest has been assisting their college roommates' path to financial independence for almost two decades already.

The Solution:

The good news is that doctors also generally earn more than their peers, with the average physician bringing in around $275,000 and the average dentist making approximately $175,000. If they combine that income with a relatively high savings rate, they can get back to broke much sooner and can continue to rapidly build wealth. It's hard to stay poor for long when you are putting six figures a year toward building wealth.

Unfortunately, our progressive tax system is skewed toward those who earn small amounts of money each year for many years and against those who earn a lot of money in just a few years. In fact, it is entirely possible to become a millionaire in this country without ever paying income tax. In 2021, when I originally wrote this piece, a family of four living in a tax-free state and taking the standard deduction could earn up to $62,500. If you maxed out a tax-deferred 401(k) at work, that amount increased to $82,000. That income got you into approximately the top 12% of all earners.

Investing $19,500 a year at 8% would cause you to become a millionaire in just over 21 years.

=NPER(8%,-19500,0,1000000) = 21.2 years

On the other hand, a doctor earning the average physician income of $275,000 pays more than $44,000 in income taxes, or about 16% of incomeagain assuming marriage to a non-earner, two kids, and the standard deduction while ignoring payroll taxes, state income taxes, sales taxes, and property taxes. At $500,000 of income, that figure rises to $115,000, or 23% of income. Whether 16% or 23%, that is simply a lot of income that cannot go toward building wealth.

The Solution:

While there is no doubt that earning more helps to build wealth (especially if you keep that savings rate high as discussed in #1), the real solution to the increased tax burden that doctors face is to minimize the taxes, especially those applied in the highest brackets. This is done using tax-protected retirement accounts, particularly those with an upfront tax deduction such as 401(k)s, 403(b)s, 457(b)s, 401(a)s, Individual 401(k)s, Health Savings Accounts, and Defined Benefit/Cash Balance Plans. Many doctors are eligible for two, three, four, or more of these accounts. Maxing these out can dramatically lower the tax burden. Consider that doctor making $500,000 and paying $115,000 in taxes. By maxing out two 401(k)s, an HSA, and an $80,000 Cash Balance Plan, this doctor can knock more than $200,000 off their adjusted gross income, lowering the tax burden by almost $62,000, or 54%. That's $62,000 more that can be used to build wealth.

Many doctors stink at investing and other financial tasks simply because they do not know how to do them. By the time typical small business owners are making six-figure incomes, they are typically very good at running a business, evaluating risks, budgeting, and negotiating. They understand how the financial world and the tax code work. That's not the case for athletes, entertainers, artists, and doctors. Their high income comes from specialized skills or knowledge, not from any particular business or financial acumen. As a general rule, medical and dental schools and residencies teach next to nothing about personal finance, investing, or business to doctors. They are dumped onto the world with a high income and no idea how to manage it effectively to build wealth.

The Solution:

While there are many of us working on integrating some sort of financial training into the medical education system, the truth is that doctors are mostly on their own to learn this information. Luckily, it's not that hard to learn, especially with resources like The White Coat Investor available to you. Whether you prefer a blog, email newsletters, a podcast, a videocast, an online course, live conferences, books, or forums, we've packaged up this information for you in your preferred format so you can learn it and apply it in your life. Knowledge is power, and the truth is that this is one of the easiest obstacles to overcome.

There are a lot of what I call Dumb Doctor Deals out there. Most of these investments can only legally be sold to accredited investors. An accredited investor is presumed to be smart enough to evaluate an investment on their own (without the assistance of the SEC) and can afford to lose more money by virtue of their wealth. However, the actual definition of an accredited investor is solely based on income or wealth; there is no requirement for investment expertise. To make matters worse, the income level ($200,000) and the wealth level ($1 million in investable assets) were never indexed to inflation. So, most physicians coming out of residency are now technically accredited investors, despite having a negative net worth and little ability to evaluate an investment. They are whales ready to be harpooned by the nearest Captain Ahab hawking a dumb doctor deal.

The Solution:

The solution is to become a REAL accredited investor before ever touching an investment requiring that status. A real accredited investor has the knowledge and skills required to tell a good investment from a bad one, and they can identify investments that are likely to be scams. A real accredited investor can also afford to lose the entire investment. I would suggest that before touching these investments, you make sure you qualify on BOTH the income requirement AND the wealth requirementand double both of them for good measure. If you're making more than $400,000 AND you have more than $2 million in investable assets AND you have developed the ability and interest to objectively evaluate a private investment, then I think it is reasonable for you to include it in your portfolio. If you cannot check all of those boxes, then stick with a portfolio of low-cost, broadly diversified index mutual funds and possibly investment properties that you own and manage directly. There's no need to get fancy to be successful.

Doctors are taught to trust the other professionals in their hospital. They know that the pediatric nephrologist knows more than them about the workings of tiny kidneys, so they defer to their wisdom on those matters, trusting their advice completely. Unfortunately, they do not realize that the entire professional world does not recite the Hippocratic Oath prior to entering their field. They do not realize that not every financial professional has a fiduciary duty to them and that even many who do fail to abide by it. They also don't realize that many financial professionals have little real financial training. This results in doctors getting a lot of bad advice and overpaying for good advice.

The Solution:

Learning how the financial services industry really works and putting on your business hat (the one that makes you skeptical and suspicious) rather than your medicine hat before interacting with financial pros is the only solution. As William Bernstein famously said:

If you act on the assumption that every broker, insurance salesman, and financial advisor you encounter is a hardened criminal, you will do just fine.

I'm not saying they're all crooks (most actually aren't), but an attitude of healthy skepticism is completely appropriate. Like with your teenager: trust, but verify.

Doctors are trained to make difficult decisions quickly with limited information. They are also used to being the smartest person in the room. This leads them to make the classic behavioral error that just because they know a lot about one thing, they know a lot about everything. It is important to know what you know, but it is even more important to be aware of what you don't know. Many doctors think that financial gurus have functioning crystal balls. Even worse, many doctors think they personally have a functioning crystal ball. It is a rare doctor who would not benefit from at least occasional high-quality financial, legal, and accounting advice.

The Solution:

Get advice when you need it. Learn enough about finance to recognize when you need it. Be humble about what you know and what you do not. Develop an investing plan that does not require you to accurately predict the future to reach your financial goals.

On the other side of the scale, there are many doctors who are absolutely terrified of anything financial. While there is a lot to learn to function as your own financial planner and investment manager, there isn't THAT much to the process, especially since you only need to learn those aspects of finance that apply to your situation. But some doctors give up before they even start and become dependent on professionals to do everything for them without even determining if they are getting good advice or whether they are paying a fair price.

The Solution:

Realize that basic financial skills are relatively easy to pick up and implement in your life. Most doctors can function as their own financial planner and investment manager if they have the interest and the will to dedicate a bit of time to the craft. It is clearly the best-paying hobby you can pick up. Successful do-it-yourself investors often discover that their confidence lagged their knowledge by about a year. You can do this and you don't have to do it all on your own all at once from the beginning. Get help from others until you can fly on your own.

Many doctors think they will be able to work forever. They view money as their most renewable resource. See a few more patients, work a few more shifts, or do a few more surgeries, and voila, more money in the checking account. Many doctors don't realize that their career may end before they thought, that children cost more than they thought, or that physician burnout rears its ugly head for many by mid-career or even earlier. Many doctors realize they are different people at 35 or 45 than they were at 25, but they built a financial plan based around practicing full-time until age 70.

The Solution:

Doctors should prioritize their wealth-building activities early in their careers. Pay off your student loans in less than five years. Pay off your mortgage in less than 15. Become rich before you start acting rich. When your financial ducks are in a row, you will have the ability to make burnout-preventing and curing changes in your careeror even leave it completely if necessary.

Doctors are notorious for being bad investors, but this isn't a terminal condition. They can overcome the obstacles in their way, build wealth, and live the good life where they can support their family, focus on their patients, eliminate financial concerns, give to good causes, and even pick up a few luxuries for themselves along the way.

What do you think? Why do doctors have a reputation as such terrible investors? What should they do about it? Comment below!

Read more from the original source:

8 Reasons Why Doctors Are Lousy Investors and How to Overcome Them - The White Coat Investor

August is ABLE to Save Month, and Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague is using the occasion to tout the importance of STABLE accounts and highlight the programs record-setting growth.

ABLE to Save Month is a national campaign that shines a light on ABLE programs across the nation and how they enhance financial independence for people living with disabilities.

Since January 2019, Ohios iteration of an ABLE program, STABLE Account, has seen overall participation grow three-fold, with total enrollment nearing 30,000 active accounts.

ABLE to Save Month is the perfect time to promote the financial empowerment and independence that STABLE accounts provide for people living with disabilities, said Sprague. These accounts are life-changing as they help individuals to save and invest money, while also staying in the workforce. Were proud to continue the growth of STABLE Account and look forward to empowering more Ohio families.

STABLE accounts are 529-like specialized savings and investment accounts for people living with disabilities. Accountholders can save up to $16,000 without losing federal assistance, and they can save an additional $12,880 each year if theyre employed. Earnings on STABLE accounts grow tax-free if they are spent on qualified expenses, which include housing, transportation, living expenses, healthcare, assistive technology and more.

The STABLE Account program was launched in 2016 following passage of the federal Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act. Prior to the ABLE Act, individuals with disabilities could only save $2,000 before losing means-tested benefits, such as Medicaid or Supplemental Security Income (SSI).

Additionally, asset limits hindered opportunities to join the workforce. These regulations made it difficult for many people to work, save and invest, creating barriers to financial independence.

In recent years, the treasurers office has partnered with several private and public sector employers across Ohio to enable eligible employees to make recurring deposits into STABLE accounts directly from their paychecks.

Through STABLE Account, Ohioans living with disabilities can enjoy a higher quality of life and build a strong financial future. Signing up for a STABLE account takes about 20 minutes and can be done online from home. For more information about STABLE accounts and to sign up, visitwww.stableaccount.com.

See original here:

Treasurer Sprague recognizes August as ABLE to Save Month - The Highland County Press

When thinking about a recession, the first thing that comes to mind for many is the thought of Americans losing their jobs. During a recession, GDP (measure of economic output) goes down and unemployment increases.

The model for a recession has been similar ever since the second world war. Typically, when production begins to slow down because of any reason among various, companies may start to reduce their workforce to compensate.

As businesses reduce their workforce, Americans begin to spend less, either for lack of income or in fear of losing their jobs. While the loss of employment is rarely a risk for federal employees, the overall economic health impacts everyone.

When people spend less, businesses make less money, and when they make less money, they begin to lay off more workers. The cycle repeats itself.

A recession can be caused by various factors, including being manufactured by the Federal Reserve through tightening of monetary policy in order to cool off the economy. Economies that run too hot for too long bring uncontrolled inflation. As difficult as a recession can be on people, long-term and unchecked inflation is much, much worse.

Historically, recessions have given an overheating economy the time it needed to regulate back to healthy levels again. Now lets look at 2022.

Domestic production has retracted, and economists have been on recession watch for quite some time. Jerome Powell, the Fed chairman, has also commented about the potential need for a recession. But the unemployment rate is actually falling. More people are getting jobs, not losing them, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Domestic production and unemployment have always been correlated because of the cyclical nature of how a free market economy worksit runs on supply and demand. But with more people being employed, what impact does this have on the potential for a recession?

Recessions can start with any of the three parts of the cycle in that graph. The consumer sentiment index measures how people are feeling about the economy, which tells us how people feel about spending money. Prior to recessions, weve historically had lower sentiment, which accelerated the progression of a recession.

In 2022, people are feeling extremely pessimistic. The cost of goods and services has rocketed, inflation is the highest it has been in 40 years, and the consumer sentiment index is measuring similar to what it did in 2008. If people are feeling negatively about where the economy is headed, then theyre less likely to spend money, which reduces corporate profits, and can worsen the cycle.

But 2022 is unlike any year weve seen before. Corporate profits are at the highest levels weve seen since the 1950s.

Heres another graph with data from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis. The vertical gray bars represent periods of a retracting economy.

Not only are profit margins high, the amount of cash that corporations currently have available to them is the highest its ever been, as shown in the graph below with data also from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis. This is a significant hedge against a contracting economy with reduced profits. Many companies are well positioned for a period of slowing business.

This could mean that businesses feel good about their positions and decide not to cut back their workforce so heavily. This could mean that we could have a much milder recession if we do have one.

There is incentive for companies to retain employees. Even the federal government has not been insulated from the masses of people retiring from the labor force. Corporations across America are having trouble filling the positions they need.

With a generational change of the workforce, as well as expectations of wages and work environments, younger workers have become more selective in their job picks and perpetuated the problem. This helps us understand one reason why corporations may be wanting to hold so much cash. They simply need to retain their people. Could we see higher wage growth as a result?

While overall consumer sentiment is weak, demand continues to be strong, and companies keep scrambling to fill the demand of consumers. This, combined with the high cash and low unemployment has economists scratching their heads in trying to figure out why inflation continues to run so hot.

One simple reason is that the Fed was quite literally 1.5 years late to the party. They were significantly slower to begin reducing economic stimulus than they should have been and kept money cheap for businesses to keep their lights on during the global pandemic.

All of these factors have created a perfect storm, which leads many economists to believe that a recession in 2022 will be unlike any weve seen before. Its not sustainable for an economy to have reducing production levels while companies are still employing and offering tons of jobs. Its an imbalance in economic sciences which can only lead to one of two things.

The first is that the corporations could use the cash on hand to hedge against the reducing production while allowing them to hire workers to increase production again. The economy corrects itself, and were back to normal. The other is that a recession is necessary in order to curb the demand in the market, forcing inflation to drop.

As a financial planning firm, we analyze the activity in the overall markets, and weve seen money managers and large financial institutions begin placing their trades to hedge. The economy and the markets are correlated but they dont always react with proximity to one another. Markets trade ahead of economic news, which is why reacting to news is almost always too late.

Despite whether weve reached the bottom of the market or if theres more to fall, whether were in a recession or if it comes later or not at all, the single most important question federal employees should ask themselves is: will whatever happens impact my financial independence?

Money is a tool to help us accomplish our objectives, take care of our families, and enjoy a life of fulfillment. Having a plan to help you accomplish these things will give you the greatest chance of achieving them. The markets wont always cooperate, neither will the economy, and sometimes your life wont either. But having a good plan in place allows you to know what you need to do to help maintain your financial safety each time the variables work against your plans.

We view a familys greatest financial success as their ability to continue living their lives the way they want to live without being ruled by variables outside their controla life with financial dignity and independence.

That is true financial freedom, and it can be possible with good planning. So dont wait any longer to prioritize your economic well-being, because its not just your money, its your future.

2022 Thiago Glieger. All rights reserved. This article may not be reproduced without express written consent from Thiago Glieger.

Read more from the original source:

Why A Recession In 2022 Will Be Unlike Any Other - FedSmith.com

There's nothing Republicans love to do more than wax poetic about parenthood. Dip a toe into red state America and you'll be bombarded with cloying bumper stickers and Facebook memes about how motherhood is the "toughest job in the world." These sentiments aren't sincere, however. They are mostly meant to reassure women who have been sidelined from paid employment that they don't need that silly financial independence anyway. And in the last two years, things have grown worse as Republicans in an attempt to justify book banning and "don't say gay" laws have tried to rebrand themselves as a "Parents Party" that supposedly stands up for exhausted folks just trying to care for families.

Caring for and educating kidsis hard work. But this sentimental claptrap from Republicans has always been empty noise. Now that Republicans have achieved their goal of banning abortion and making motherhood mandatory, the mask is slipping away. They are now letting loose with their true belief: Child-rearing is dumb and easy, not even really work at all.

The Republican attitude towards child-rearing can be summed up as this: "If women do it, how hard can it be?"

Republicans have absolutely no respect for the people who actually do the hard work of bringing up kids, both in and out of the home. Despite the employment of gender-neutral terms like "parenting," the truth of the matter is child care and teaching are still largely relegated to the realm of "women's work." And there's no number of saccharine slogans that will change the baseline conservatives' assumption that women's work doesn't count as real work.

Thirteen is an "absolutely phenomenal" age to become a mother, according toJana Pinson, an anti-choice activist who has been granted millions of dollars to run a "crisis pregnancy center" meant to strongarm reluctant women into giving birth. Pinsongushed in a piece published Sunday in the Washington Post about how barely post-pubescentkids should embrace motherhood. "I've seen a lot of 13-year-olds do phenomenal" as mothers, Pinson insisted.

"It doesn't have to be a negative thing," she added, describing forced childbirth on middle school kids.

Her comments soon went viral on social media, obviously due to the widespread horror at the deep immorality of anti-choicers. There is nothing, of course, "pro-life" about this sadistic desire to re-traumatize child rape victims by stripping away their childhoods or forcing young children into motherhood. But Pinson's comment is also telling in another way. It serves as a reminder that conservatives don't treat child-rearing as a serious responsibility.

Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics? Subscribe to her newsletter Standing Room Only.

Thirteen-year-olds aren't allowed to vote, drive, drink, or, in most cases, even attend high school. Hell, Republicans don't believe kids that young are mature enough even to receive sex education or told the truth about racism in American history. More importantly, outside of some odd jobs and very limited part-time employment, 13-year-olds aren't allowed to work for pay. They aren't allowed to live independently of adult supervision. Partially, this is because we're trying to protect kids from having to grow up too fast. But it's also because our society recognizes that kids this young don't possess the intellectual or emotional maturity to handle adult responsibilities. We don't want 13-year-olds driving cars not just for their own safety, but for everyone's safety.

That's why Republicans so often talk about forcing motherhood on women like it's no bigger deal than asking them to pay a traffic ticket.

Yet Pinson believes that these children are fully capable of raising other children. She isn't just some random weirdo, either, but a person with the full faith and credit of the entire GOP establishment. As the Post explains, due to huge infusions of cash from both GOP donors and the Republican-run Texas government, Pinson is building a "$10 million crisis pregnancy center," complete with a thrift store and cafe, all to "attract female undergraduates" in hopes of pressuring them into premature motherhood.

Pinson's attitude belies the larger and truer belief about motherhood that lurks under the GOP's sentimental exterior: It's just child's play, not real work. That's why Republicans so often talk about forcing motherhood on women like it's no bigger deal than asking them to pay a traffic ticket. They can't imagine that being a mother is actually hard work, as their bumper stickers always say.

That patronizing attitude isn't just limited to the work of rearing children, either, but also applies to educating them.

Despite all of the political dramatics around education being staged by Republicans, underneath it all they truly don't think of being a schoolteacher as a real job requiring real skills and training.That's always been evident from the GOP attitude towards teachers' unions, but it's only gotten more pronounced in recent months. The hysterics about fictional "critical race theory" lessons in public schools, as well as their book banning push, provide Republicans even more cover to push their belief that being a schoolteacher is just glorified babysitting. (Although even babysitting is harder work than conservatives will admit.)

Red states are now starting to get rid of the basic requirement that public school teachers have a college education. Under the guise of shoring up the teacher shortage, both Arizona and Florida have dropped the requirement that public school teachers need to graduate college before getting a license to teach. In Florida, having military experience is considered sufficient. Now Iowa's Republican-controlled legislature is moving forward with a similar billthat would allow high school students to run daycare classrooms. The bill would also increase the limit on the number of kids allowed in a class, serving as yet another reminder that conservatives don't think caring for children is real work. They can't imagine that overstuffed classrooms are legitimately overwhelming.

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The Republican contempt for childcare and education has never been far from the surface. We see this in the relentless red state "work requirements" put on mothers to receive financial assistance. The push is based on the assumption that the children of lower-income women can simply be put away on a shelf while their mother is at work. Or in the words of Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who recently dismissed families' need for childcare at all: "I've never really felt it was society's responsibility to take care of other people's children."

No doubt, like many rich male Republicans, Johnson is able to largely ignore how grueling the daily work of child-rearing and education is. Likely, someone else did it for him, and mostly where he didn't even have to see it. For rich male Republicans, children just show up when summoned, fed, groomed and taught to read as if by magic. The actual grunt work of turning children into functional adults has been concealed from such men by social structures that not only foist this work on women but guilt women into not bothering men with the details.It's just more misogyny.

Red states are now starting to get rid of the basic requirement that public school teachers have a college education.

The Republican attitude towards child-rearing can be summed up as this: "If women do it, how hard can it be?"

In reality, of course, bringing up children is hard work. It can't be done by one adult by herself, much less by those who are still children themselves. Every child needs a staggering amount of attention and care in order to grow into a functional adult. Little kids aren't houseplants or even cats, who can be left alone for hours without supervision. It does, no matter how much Republicans may scoff, take a village to raise a child.

No matter how much Republicans try to brand themselves as the "Parents Party," this derision for the actual work of caring for and educating children tells the true story. Republicans have absolutely no respect for this crucial form of labor at all.

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GOP's post-Roe reveal: Republicans don't think raising children is real work - Salon

The process of buying shares in a company is incredibly easy. Finding the right stocks that offer a good return on investment is a completely different story. So how can investors know which share is best to buy? For the answer, we asked some of the smartest investment minds aroundthree of our IU Einsteins.

Alexander Greens Oxford Communiqu newsletter has more than doubled the S&P 500 over the past 20+ years

Alexander Green is the Chief Investment Strategist of The Oxford Club, the worlds largest financial fellowship. For 16 years, Alex worked as an investment advisor, research analyst and portfolio manager on Wall Street. After developing his extensive knowledge and achieving financial independence, he retired at the age of 43. More on Alex

In my 36 years in the business, the three best methodsIve found for selecting stocks are momentum investing, value investing and riding the coattails of industry insiders.

Momentum stocksare companies that lead the market in sales and earnings growth, product innovation and price action. They tend to rise faster in a bull market and fall harder in a bear market or correction.

Value stocks are companies that are cheaper than most on the basis of price-to-sales, price-to-earnings and price-to-book value. They often pay bigger-than-average dividends too.

These stocks may rise less in a bull market but hold up better in a bear market. They are a fine example of why the tortoise beat the hare.

Andinsider stocksare ones where the officers, directors and beneficial owners are buying substantial amounts of their own companies shares with their own money at current market prices.

Given that these individuals have access to all sorts of material, nonpublic information about their companies business prospects, its no surprise that these stocks tend to outperform in good times and bad.

These arethree different approachesrequiring entirely different metrics. Yet they all work over time and none involve trying to outguess the market.

Of course, anyone can plunk for a few shares of stock. Successful investing also means knowing when to get the heck out.

The Dividend Kings thoughts on which share is best to buy

Marc Lichtenfeld is the Chief Income Strategist ofInvestment Us publisher, The Oxford Club. He has more than three decades of experience in the market and a dedicated following of more than 500,000 investors.

After getting his start on the trading desk at Carlin Equities, he moved over to Avalon Research Group as a senior analyst. Over the years, Marcs commentary has appeared inThe Wall Street Journal,Barrons and U.S. News & World Report, among other outlets. Prior to joining The Oxford Club, he was a senior columnist at Jim Cramers TheStreet. Today, he is a sought-after media guest who has appeared on CNBC, Fox Business and Yahoo Finance. More on Marc

The market has been brutal in 2022, especially over the past couple of months. But theres been a place to hide. Dividend stocks not only have given investors shelter from the raging storm but also have provided a hot meal and a comfortable bed for investors to rest their weary heads.

It shouldnt be a surprise that stocks that pay strong dividends not only are outperforming the market but are still positive for the year, despite the market being quite weak.

The dividends received act as a buffer. If youre collecting a 4% dividend yield and the stock falls 4%, you will break even. So when markets are bad, dividends can offset some of those losses.

That has led to all three of my stock portfolios inThe Oxford Income Letter being positive year-to-date and each beating the market by at least 10 percentage points in a year when the S&P 500 is down 16%.

Former CBOE trader weighs in on which share is best to buy

Whether it was selling the Star Wars figures he collected as a little boy for 50 times their value or using the $125 he made cutting grass to buy a Michael Jordan rookie card that he later sold for $1,500, it was always clear that Bryan Bottarelli was a born trader possessing the unique ability to identify opportunities and leverage his investments.

Graduating with a business degree from the highly rated Indiana University Kelley School of Business, Bryan got his first job out of college trading stock options on the floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE). There, he was mentored by one of the countrys top floor traders during the heart of the technology boom from 1999 to 2000 trading in the crowded and lively Apple computer pit. Executing his trades in real time, Bryan learned to identify and implement some of his most powerful trading secrets secrets that rarely find their way outside the CBOE to be used by individual traders. More on Bryan

Why is that? Because the market is forward thinking and stocks prices are based on future value, not present value. So you want to buy a stock now thats cheap and thats overlooked and thats undervalued. This is because Wall Street isnt paying attention to it. The present value is cheap. But in six months time when that stock recovers and comes back up, and everyone now agrees that it is a buy you bought it six months ago and now youre selling it to all those people for a much higher price.

When Covid-19 first started hitting the airways and people started realizing what the impact would be, stocks were getting hammered. Airlines, cruise lines, Disney, sports and sports betting closed down. But then what happened next was people started realizing that there was a vaccine coming. And just as quickly as all of those stocks moved down, all of them just blasted right back up. Now (many of them) didnt fully recover, but the stocks still moved up because of this principle. Because the market is forward thinking and in six months time the idea was sports betting would be back, Disney would be back, airlines would be back and so on.

Remember this quote: Successful investing is about having people agree with you later. For me, six months later. If you can do that, you can make a lot of money.

Whether its momentum stocks, value stocks, insider stocks, dividends or forward thinkingthere are many investment strategies to help figure out which share is best to buy.

Fortunately for you, Investment U has a variety of options when it comes to the best investment newsletters. Choose a newsletter that is best for you today and start profiting from our IU Einsteins years of experience.

Ben Broadwater is the Director of Investment U. He has more than 15 years of content creation experience. He has worked and written for numerous companies in the financial publishing space, including Charles Street Research, The Oxford Club and now Investment U. When Ben isnt busy running Investment U, you can usually find him with a pair of drumsticks or a guitar in his hand.

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Which Share Is Best to Buy? - Investment U