The Power of Dividend Investing

Here's an interesting snippet about the benefits of dividend investing:

"A recent Associated Press report noted that Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs has only earned $1 per year since he returned to the CEO post in 1997.

That seems to beg the question how does someone live on $1 per year? Steve is able to enjoy a very lavish lifestyle, but not because of his large salary. His lifestyle is funded by his dividend income. Yes, Steve Jobs is probably one of the biggest dividend investors that you've never heard of.

Jobs owns approximately 138 million shares of Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) stock that he received from the Pixar Animation Studios sale back in 2006.

Disney has paid out dividends of $0.35 per share each of the past three years. Owning 138 million shares results in over $48 million received each year in dividend income." -SeekingAlpha

I believe that dividends are also subject to the 15% cap on income tax, making that a pretty low tax rate for Mr. Jobs.

Bull Market In Bureaucracy

According the interesting guys at Agora Finance, the all industry thats in a bull market is government employment!

Not sure why increased government spending is touted as a good thing. Sure it helps the economy from spiralling into a depression, but shouldn't there be some limit on it? Its not like we have any savings. We're just borrowing from foreigners who are happy to send us back their surplus-export-dollars in order to keep their currencies in check to prevent their exports from decreasing. At some point we might become like Japan, with a debt that's nearly 200% of GDP!