January 11, 2024
The young man who is being viciously beaten to death by a hate-filled murderer, . whose son is this? I have read most of the comments made about this vicious act of murder. We, the viewers don’t know exactly what happened because the dead youth can’t tell his side of the story that led to his death. This kid could have said something offensive to the murder’s daughter. He might have touched her in some way, but we are not given information of what actually happened between this teenager and the man’s teenage daughter. It seems apparent that the young man did not rape the girl. There is absolutely no reason or justification of the vicious murder of this young man. I want to say a hell of a lot more, but civility restrains me.
https://x.com/BestFightClip/status/1745339759549907103?s=20
Bottled water can contain hundreds of thousands of previously uncounted tiny plastic bits, study finds
Soft Drinks
Water
In recent years, there has been rising concern that tiny particles known as microplastics are showing up basically everywhere on Earth, from polar ice to soil, drinking water and food. Formed when plastics break down into progressively smaller bits, these particles are being consumed by humans and other creatures, with unknown potential health and ecosystem effects.
One big focus of research: bottled water, which has been shown to contain tens of thousands of identifiable fragments in each container.
Now, using newly-refined technology, researchers have entered a whole new plastic world: the poorly known realm of nanoplastics, the spawn of microplastics that have broken down even further.
For the first time, they counted and identified these minute particles in bottled water. They found that on average, a liter contained some 240,000 detectable plastic fragments—10 to 100 times greater than previous estimates, which were based mainly on larger sizes.
The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Nanoplastics are so tiny that, unlike microplastics, they can pass through intestines and lungs directly into the bloodstream and travel from there to organs including the heart and brain. They can invade individual cells, and cross through the placenta to the bodies of unborn babies. Medical scientists are racing to study the possible effects on a wide variety of biological systems.
“Previously this was just a dark area, uncharted. Toxicity studies were just guessing what’s in there,” said study co-author Beizhan Yan, an environmental chemist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “This opens a window where we can look into a world that was not exposed to us before.”
Worldwide plastic production is approaching 400 million metric tons a year. More than 30 million tons are dumped yearly in water or on land, and many products made with plastics including synthetic textiles shed particles while still in use.
Unlike natural organic matter, most plastics do not break down into relatively benign substances; they simply divide and redivide into smaller and smaller particles of the same chemical composition. Beyond single molecules, there is no theoretical limit to how small they can get.
: Scientists find about a quarter million invisible nanoplastic particles in a liter of bottled water (The Canadian Press)
Microplastics are defined as fragments ranging from 5 millimeters (less than a quarter inch) down to 1 micrometer, which is 1 millionth of a meter, or 1/25,000th of an inch. (A human hair is about 70 micrometers across.) Nanoplastics, which are particles below 1 micrometer, are measured in billionths of a meter.
Plastics in bottled water became a public issue largely after a 2018 study detected an average of 325 particles per liter; later studies multiplied that number many times over. Scientists suspected there were even more than they had yet counted, but good estimates stopped at sizes below 1 micrometer—the boundary of the nano world.
“People developed methods to see nano particles, but they didn’t know what they were looking at,” said the new study’s lead author, Naixin Qian, a Columbia graduate student in chemistry. She noted that previous studies could provide bulk estimates of nano mass, but for the most part could not count individual particles, nor identify which were plastics or something else.
The new study uses a technique called stimulated Raman scattering microscopy, which was co-invented by study co-author Wei Min, a Columbia biophysicist. This involves probing samples with two simultaneous lasers that are tuned to make specific molecules resonate. Targeting seven common plastics, the researchers created a data-driven algorithm to interpret the results. “It is one thing to detect, but another to know what you are detecting,” said Min.
The researchers tested three popular brands of bottled water sold in the United States (they declined to name which ones), analyzing plastic particles down to just 100 nanometers in size.
They spotted 110,000 to 370,000 particles in each liter, 90% of which were nanoplastics; the rest were microplastics. They also determined which of the seven specific plastics they were, and charted their shapes—qualities that could be valuable in biomedical research.
One common one was polyethylene terephthalate or PET. This was not surprising, since that is what many water bottles are made of. (It is also used for bottled sodas, sports drinks and products such as ketchup and mayonnaise.) It probably gets into the water as bits slough off when the bottle is squeezed or gets exposed to heat. One recent study suggests that many particles enter the water when you repeatedly open or close the cap, and tiny bits abrade.
However, PET was outnumbered by polyamide, a type of nylon. Ironically, said Beizhan Yan, that probably comes from plastic filters used to supposedly purify the water before it is bottled. Other common plastics the researchers found: polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride and polymethyl methacrylate, all used in various industrial processes.
A somewhat disturbing thought: the seven plastic types the researchers searched for accounted for only about 10% of all the nanoparticles they found in samples; they have no idea what the rest are. If they are all nanoplastics, that means they could number in the tens of millions per liter.
But they could be almost anything, “indicating the complicated particle composition inside the seemingly simple water sample,” the authors write. “The common existence of natural organic matter certainly requires prudent distinguishment.”
The researchers are now reaching beyond bottled water. “There is a huge world of nanoplastics to be studied,” said Min. He noted that by mass, nanoplastics comprise far less than microplastics, but “it’s not size that matters. It’s the numbers, because the smaller things are, the more easily they can get inside us.”
Among other things, the team plans to look at tap water, which also has been shown to contain microplastics, though far less than bottled water.
Beizhan Yan is running a project to study microplastics and nanoplastics that end up in wastewater when people do laundry—by his count so far, millions per 10-pound load, coming off synthetic materials that comprise many items. (He and colleagues are designing filters to reduce the pollution from commercial and residential washing machines.)
The team will soon identify particles in snow that British collaborators trekking by foot across western Antarctica are currently collecting. They also are collaborating with environmental health experts to measure nanoplastics in various human tissues and examine their developmental and neurologic effects.
“It is not totally unexpected to find so much of this stuff,” said Qian. “The idea is that the smaller things get, the more of them there are.”
The study was coauthored by Xin Gao and Xiaoqi Lang of the Columbia chemistry department; Huipeng Deng and Teodora Maria Bratu of Lamont-Doherty; Qixuan Chen of Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health; and Phoebe Stapleton of Rutgers University.
More information: Rapid single-particle chemical imaging of nanoplastics by SRS microscopy, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2300582121. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2300582121
Provided by Columbia Climate School
This story was originally published on Phys.org. Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest sci-tech news updates.
Yes, it is winter now, but what a beautiful reminder of autumn.
BTC price as of Nov 20,2022, 6:00pm CST $15,460.00 X 619,000 = $9,569,740,000
BTC price Jan. 9, 2024, 6:48 am CST $46,737.59 X 619,000 = $28,930,568,210
Acronyms are created and used very often in the news today. BIPOC is new to me and yesterday was the first time I came across it.
ACalifornia University Condemned Claims That Jewish Doctors Were a Danger to BIPOC Patients. A Racial Justice Organizer Condemned Them Right Back
The unfounded theory bares resemblance to a Soviet-era propaganda plot from the 1950s
Perry Chiaramonte
The University of California San Francisco recently released a statement condemning a recent conspiracy theory that “zionist” doctors are a “threat” to BIPOC individuals – and one social justice organizer and doctor from the Bay Area is condemning them right back, equating the school’s statement to “violence.”
In a post to X on Jan. 6, UC San Francisco posted a lengthy statement to address in response to the conspiracy theory, in which it’s alleged that many American Doctors are “Zionists” that seek to harm Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, South Asian, and Black patients.
“Zionists” refers to followers of the movement that dates back to the 19th century and sought to establish a homeland for Jewish people in the Middle East.
“This sweeping, baseless, and racist generalization must be condemned,” reads a section of the post. “Both Jewish and non-Jewish people see the use of the word ‘Zionist’ in this debunked narrative as an antisemitic attack.”
“As a health sciences university and health system, we want our patients, clinicians, faculty, learners, and staff to know that UCSF is committed to serving every individual regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, political view, gender, and sexual identity.”
Dr. Bernie Lim, who operates the Freedom Community Clinic in nearby Oakland and is a social justice organizer, responded to the post on the same day and took issue with the University’s statement.
“Cowardly, shameful leadership @UCSF defending Zionism & white supremacy and attacking faculty of color,” Dr. Lim wrote in a post on X. “This statement is outrageous and unacceptable. Many BIPOC health equity docs & scholars (including myself) have experienced this same violence and left for that same reason.”
The 29-year-old medical professional, whose bio says that she is a graduate of UCSF Medical School, said in an additional post: “[I]t is unacceptable to witness a leading medical school & health institution defend Zionism & white supremacy. It is outrageous to attack faculty of color and violate academic freedom. Stop this now.”
UCSF officials did not immediately respond to The Messenger’s request for comment.
The “zionist doctor” conspiracy has been compared to an antisemitic propaganda campaign started by the former Soviet Union in the 1950s known as “the doctors’ plot.”
The campaign was a state-sponsored effort to discredit Jewish doctors with claims that there was a cabal who sought to assassinate government officials in the U.S.S.R through incorrect and harmful medical treatments.
The doctors’ plot first came to surface in 1953 when Joseph Stalin had urged state newspapers to report on a plot to kill him and other Soviet leaders, claiming that several officials had already died as a result of the cabal of doctors.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0G7TyVrRn5/?igsh=MTQ1MWFtb3NiaXIzNA==
January 7, 2024 How low will Solana go? Take a look at SEI.
Bair House built in 1888 in Arcata, CA,
Bidding adieu to 2023,
http://www.instagram.com/reel/Cy2Fur4pEjN/?igsh=MWhnMjQ0eHN6Nng4Zw==
Black Americans, Asian Americans, Mexican Americans and White Americans: The Trump Cult Spell.
(ThyBlackMan.com) You like him or you don’t. You trust him or you don’t. You believe him or you don’t. You praise him or you don’t. Donald J. Trump. The biggest cult-leading con artist of our lifetime. But there is more to this than meets the eye, much more.
When people will neither look at the facts nor the evidence, there is a problem. When people seem to be so inundated with a political candidate that truth does not matter anymore, there is a bigger problem. When a candidate can deceive so many so easily so often, there is a huge problem. You can vote for who you want to, but none of these things are normal. Not at all. So in this article we’re going down the rabbit hole.
I am not a Democrat. Still, talking to Trump supporters reminds me of when I counseled and de-programmed ex-cult members who had been brainwashed by cults and their cult leaders. So while I understand politics, hidden agendas, capitalism and the corporate machine, there is something much darker here. Much darker than fear. Much darker than ignorance. Much darker than denial. The MAGA Trump followers have been brainwashed into a cult, and their actions seem as if those who are zombies under a spell or both. Mind control! Yes it exists.
Of course some people wanted to ride the Trump train, because like him, they are opportunists. Of course, some people believed Trump would do a good job. Of course, some people were taken in by what he said and his promises. But what is happening today is much deeper, much darker, and much deadlier than that. We are seeing the manifestation of dark powers and principalities and the puppets they control like Trump.
This Trump cult has a heavy base of racism, the same racism that founded America. Donald Trump represents the real America without the clan robe and hood and torch and rope. His words produce fear and anger. His speeches are full of hate and deception. His actions are full of lawlessness. Donald Trump is a “man of lawlessness”. And yet his diehard supporters cannot see any of this. They represent the real America, a country founded by criminal hypocrite colonizing invaders who fled Europe.
Any time millions of people can support a man with 91 felony charges in 4 separate courts, a man who was impeached, a man who lost a rape case, a man who calls veterans losers, a man who jokes about the handicapped, a man who admits on tape that he sexually molests women at will, a man who tries to overturn a legal election and ignore the Constitution of the United States, a man who insights violence and insurrection against the United States (thereby violating his oath of office), a man who pays off a porn star he used, a man who cheats on his wife, a man who lies more times than the average person can count, a man who used the United States government as his personal piggy bank, a man who kept and shared classified documents, a man who has no problem with Russia meddling in America’s elections, a man who praises and looks up to dictators in other countries, a man who threatens to use the Justice Department of the United States to retaliate against his enemies, a man who quotes Hitler and a man who can blind and deceive millions at will, those people are in a cult and under a spell. In such case, America is dealing with the nature of Satan himself. Or is America simply reaping what it has sown, and its prize pupil has arisen?
Donald Trump is not a genius. An examination of his tactics, his failed businesses and marriages can prove that. But what most people need to see is that Donald Trump is getting instructions from something or somewhere. Dark instructions. Instructions from those who he obeys. Trump did not come up with all of this on his own. And those puppet masters who pull his strings are the ones you really need to worry about. They are much more powerful than him, much smarter than him and demand both loyalty and obedience without question. Donald Trump may be the face of the cult, but he is not the head of it. Not by any means. And all of this was planned out before he even got his instructions to run for President .
Unfortunately, that is all that I can say. You may not believe it, but it’s all true. You may not accept it. But so be it. Time will tell and you will see. So whether you are a Republican or Democrat, that doesn’t matter. Presidents are selected before they are ever elected. Your vote is simply to create the illusion of citizen empowerment. That is as far down the rabbit hole as I am going to take you. Open your eyes that you may see.
Staff Writer; Trevo Craw
A Free Thinker, who loves to talk about Politics, Religion, etc. Also, all about uplifting the Black Community even if it doesn’t fit your mindset. One may hit me up at; TrevoCraw@ThyBlackMan.com.
A few years ago, I had a conversation with a young woman who was attending the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign). I had read an article in which the question was posed, “Would you want to live to experience 500 years of sunsets?” The specifics of our exchange are not necessary, but the question is still valid. To you the reader, would you want to live 500 years?
Consider the dynamics involved in living 500 years or there about. A simple question would be, “How long would you be in the work force and how would you support yourself for 500 years? Yet, there is more, . . much more to consider in the quest to live that long.
https://stalliontrue.com/nola-new-orleans-la/
Pura Muñoz, biologist: ‘It is possible to reverse aging, to go back in time’
Ayear ago, a disconcerting project was presented to the world: a multinational company with four Nobel Prize winners on board, a huge $3-bilion budget and a very ambitious objective — to extend how long humans can live in good health. For months, the company, called Altos Labs, secretly signed dozens of the best scientists in the world, offering them salaries of more than $1 million a year. In March, Altos Labs — backed in the shadows by the Russian-Israeli billionaire Yuri Milner — recruited Spanish biologist Pura Muñoz Cánoves, winner of Spain’s National Research Award, who until then, was professor at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona.
Muñoz Cánoves, 61, revealed the mechanisms of aging and muscle regeneration. Her Spanish laboratory designed strategies that managed to repair the muscle tissue of old mice, increasing the self-cleaning of their cells and eliminating damaged ones. At the Altos Labs headquarters in San Diego, Muñoz Cánoves and her colleagues are now focusing on a new paradigm: the aim is no longer to fix what is damaged, but to literally rejuvenate the human body.
One of Altos Labs’ advisors is Japanese doctor Shinya Yamanaka, who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2012 for discovering that an adult cell — from the skin of a finger, for example — can be reprogrammed and return to an embryonic state, capable of becoming into any other type of cell, such as a neuron in the brain. The necessary chemical cocktail — consisting of four molecules known as Yamanaka factors — has already shown its effectiveness in mice, which have lived 30% longer and experienced apparent rejuvenating effects on their tissues, according to the results of pioneering experiments carried out by Spanish scientists Juan Carlos Izpisua, Manuel Serrano and María Abad. Altos Labs has also signed these three researchers to the team. Muñoz Cánoves explains the goals of her research after taking part in the Trends 2023 event, organized by EL PAÍS.
Question. A mouse lives three years, a squirrel can live 25 and the shaved mouse even exceeds 40 years, being quite similar animals. Can we dream of multiplying human life expectancy by 10?
Answer. And whales live 200 years. We do not know why some species have such a long lifespan and others have such a short lifespan. I don’t know the causes, but I think what we have to try is to live better. If we accept as a true premise that there is a greater risk of diseases with aging, a new branch of biomedicine focuses its interest on keeping the body young, as long as possible, to prevent diseases or make them appear as late as possible. This is also the premise of Altos: trying to keep cells, and organisms, young and healthy as long as possible. It is a new paradigm that involves preventing the appearance of diseases in a general way and not one by one. Altos’ strategy is to rejuvenate with reprogramming: try to turn back the clock a little, to delay the entire onset of diseases. It is very incipient and is still far from being put into practice.
Q. American experts Matt Kaeberlein and Brian Kennedy stated in 2009 in the journal Nature that a pill to extend life was science fiction. Is that still the case?
A. I think not so much anymore, almost 15 years have passed. The new philosophy is to try to stay young to generally stop the diseases associated with aging. It is the opposite of precision medicine, which is highly personalized. This is general medicine: keeping cells young so that the risks associated with the passage of time do not appear so soon. But it’s still early.
Q. Do you think it’s possible for a pill to stop cancer, Alzheimer’s and cardiovascular diseases altogether?
A. No, not a pill. They will have to be treated on different fronts. In Altos, what we are trying is to make the cells stronger. As time goes by, cells lose their weapons to stop stress and become more vulnerable. If they rejuvenate themselves with reprogramming methods, they will be able to better deal with stress and prevent illness. This is still early. We have to see how to reprogram cells safely.
Q. An injection?
A. We are not there yet. We are beginning to understand how to turn back the clock. Matt Kaeberlein and Brian K. Kennedy said in 2009 that there may be a pill that will make us stay younger longer, but it was still science fiction. They were likely referring to rapamycin or metformin pills, which prevent aging. What remains a long way off is actually reversing diseases associated with aging — turning back the clock.
Q. Reverse aging?
A. Reverse it, yes, but we already know that this has been possible in experiments with mice and in human cells. Shinya Yamanaka won the Nobel Prize for it. The proof of concept, with its risks, is there: aging can be reversed. A cell can become younger. Yamanaka managed to return it to the embryonic stage zero, but there is no need to return there. Juan Carlos Izpisua’s experiments show that controlled pulses of four Yamanaka factors, in a mouse model of premature aging, helped them to live longer and improved tissue function and regeneration in normal aging mice. That has already happened, Altos is working on ways to translate these approaches to humans but this will take some time.
Q. It is possible, conceptually, to go back in time in the cells of a human being.
A. I’m not talking about human beings, I’m talking about mice, but yes, it is possible in human beings, Altos and others have demonstrated this in human cells.
Q. In animals, then.
A. In animals. This has already occurred in a mouse model of progeria and normal aging mice. The proof of concept is there: it is possible to go back in time a little. And that proof of concept gives you hope of figuring out how to do it safely. But this is still a long way off. Altos, like other companies, wants to start from the basis of rejuvenating cells so that they are healthier, younger and with greater resilience to better cope with diseases associated with the passage of time. Deep down it is very simple, but it will not happen tomorrow.
Q. Izpisua announced in EL PAÍS in March 2022 his intention to rejuvenate monkeys by reprogramming their cells. It is the necessary step to jump from mouse to human.
A. Yes, but we also have to understand how it happens. Now we only have the proof of concept in mice and human cells. We do not know how these factors cause cells to go back in time but Altos is focused on understanding this.
Q. The Yamanaka experiments were almost two decades ago.
A. But that was going back to day zero, in vitro. It was returning to the embryonic state. Manuel Serrano’s team did it in mice [in 2013], returning to day zero, but there were tumors. Izpisua’s thing is to go back a little bit in time, without creating damage. Nobody wants to go back to the embryonic stage. Why would you? In that state the tissues do not function.
Q. Israeli doctor Nir Barzilai has been seeking funding for years for a large clinical trial with thousands of people to test whether metformin — a drug widely used to control the amount of sugar in the blood in patients with type 2 diabetes — delays aging diseases en bloc: cancer, Alzheimer’s, cardiovascular diseases.
A. Metformin and rapamycin are compounds that increase longevity in some species. And it all goes together: if the state of health is prolonged, almost consequently, there will be greater longevity. They are compounds that prolong functionality. What Altos is focused on is how to turn back the clock: reprogram the cells so that they return to a previous state and recover their function. It is a proof of concept that has already been demonstrated, but is very far from being applied. Rapamycin and metformin can be taken, but there are no cocktails that can be administered in humans to try to reverse the clock with cell reprogramming methods with Yamanaka factors or others. They are still laboratory techniques.
Q. The book Dying Young at 140, written by molecular biologist María Blasco and journalist Mónica Salomone, says that the oldest animal in the world is a clam from Iceland that lived 507 years. Is there something biological that prevents us from living 507 years?
A. We do not know why whales live 200 years, a mouse lives three and we live 80. Perhaps by understanding evolutionary biology we can incorporate natural strategies of some species and make them our own to live better. Paraphrasing María Blasco, what we all want is to die young after many years of life. But we are all going to die, because we are mortal.
Q. Do you believe that the 140 years in the title of that book are achievable?
A. We have better hygiene, vaccines, access to education, to healthcare. It will not be very complicated for those already born to live to 100 years, or more than 100 for those born now. But I don’t know if it will be 120, 130, 140. Rejuvenating and turning back the clock is something very revolutionary that is not going to happen tomorrow, but I think that the accumulation of advances is going to generate synergies that will make us go faster than we think now.
Q. Only one person has lived more than 120 years, Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment (1875-1997).
A. Yes, now there is a 116-year-old lady in Catalonia [Maria Branyas]. Before we did not see diseases that are now common, such as Alzheimer’s, because people did not reach the age of 80 or 90. There are diseases that we do not know about today and that will appear when it is normal, if it ever becomes normal, to exceed 100 years of age.
Q. Typical diseases when you are 120 years old.
A. We don’t know those.
Q. You have focused on researching muscle regeneration. The first one that usually comes to mind is the biceps of the arm, but the beating heart or the diaphragm that allows you to breathe are also muscles. Why do our cells stop working?
A. I have dedicated myself to trying to see how to repair skeletal muscle, which is not so different from how to repair other tissues. We have to find out why it malfunctions, try to repair it with stem cells and form new tissue. It’s like repairing a car. The new paradigm is not to change something specific that works poorly, but to go back so that everything works better.
Q. If Izpisua and his Chinese colleagues are successful and rejuvenate monkeys through reprogramming, how could the leap be made to humans?
A. That work is early and has years left and much to be understood before it might be possible to move in to humans.
Q. A promising experimental cancer treatment can be tested on dying patients who have no other alternative, but how could a non-aging treatment be tested on healthy people?
A. Altos’ mission is focused on reversing disease and not on anti-aging per se. In people, the mechanisms of turning back the clock are not going to be a pill in a few years. First you have to know how they work and prevent side effects. Until we know how it happens and what risks it has, it surely cannot be managed.
Q. Do you take rapamycin or metformin?
A. No, I know people who take it amateurishly, but not me.
Q. And do you restrict calories?
A. In my laboratory we have worked with calorie restriction in mice and it works. We see that their muscle aging is better than that of their counterparts who eat ad libitum. We have also studied time-restricted eating: eating the same thing, but in only eight hours. We see that the mice are much better, they have better autophagy and a better circadian rhythm, which we all lose during aging. The rhythm imposed by food — by the timing of the meal, not so much by eating less — makes these functions more defined. Many functions improve by eating in a restricted time, we are seeing beneficial effects. Their muscles are better when they eat for several months at a certain time. We have seen that their muscles look like those of younger mice.
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How do you do?
Is it winter yet?
‘There should not be one billionaire in America’: Jesse Ventura slams the elite and says nobody works hard enough to earn billions of dollars — how to make your money work for you instead
Complete article can be found further down on this blog page.
Do you remember?
Jesse Ventura, the former governor of Minnesota, had tongues wagging after he stated his belief that “there should not be one billionaire in America” earlier this year at Steel City Con.
The 72-year-old explained that his views were shaped by his personal experience working a wide range of jobs.
Before serving as governor, he was a professional wrestler and actor. But, he said, the jobs that “were physically the most demanding, and mentally the most difficult that I ever did, paid me the least amount of money.”
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One of the toughest experiences he had was going through the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEALS training program for the Navy.
“I challenge any billionaire to put up with six weeks of that at $62 every two weeks,” he said at the Pennsylvania conference in April.
Before joining the Navy, Ventura says he had a job with the Minnesota Highway Department making a “couple of bucks above minimum wage” where he worked four 10-hour days a week.
“And guess what I did? I ran the 80-pound jackhammer,” he said. “I challenge any billionaire to run the jackhammer for 40 hours for one week and then tell me he works harder than that.”
In his opinion, no one works hard enough to justify making billions of dollars. These comments highlight a disconnect between hard work and compensation. The most labor-intensive and time-consuming jobs are not necessarily the best paid.
If making money is unrelated to hard work, why not let money do all the work for you? Here are two ways to put your capital to work and generate passive income.
Dividend stocks
Investing in stocks is a rather passive way to make money. You fund your account, buy a stock and (if you picked the right one) the stock gains value over time without the need for you to lift a finger. To make this even more attractive, some stocks offer you cash payments simply for holding them.
Blue-chip stocks often pay high dividend yields. For example, AT&T currently offers to pay out 7% of its share price, and Pfizer offers 5% along with its Dividend Reinvestment Plan, which lets you compound wealth at an accelerated pace.
With enough time and capital, you could create a sustainable source of passive income from dividends alone. High-yield dividend stocks can allow you to fund your lifestyle with the rewards of a thriving economy, and the strategy requires no physical labor at all.
Read more: ‘It’s not taxed at all’: Warren Buffett shares the ‘best investment’ you can make when battling inflation
Inflation-protected bond ETFs
Bonds are looking more attractive now that the central bank has raised interest rates. The yield on a 10-year U.S. Treasury is just below 4% right now, significantly higher than the sub-1% yield in 2020. The Treasury yield is also much higher than the S&P 500’s average dividend yield of around 1.5%.
Simply put, you can earn a higher income by lending money to the U.S. government for 10 years (a strategy widely considered to be nearly risk-free) than by investing in America’s 500 largest public companies.
Inflation complicates this a little. That’s because companies in the S&P 500 can raise prices and boost dividends in line with inflation, but the payout on most government bonds is static regardless of economic conditions. With inflation at 3.1% right now, this is a genuine concern.
However, some bonds have payouts linked to inflation. Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities are U.S. sovereign bonds pegged to the Consumer Price Index. In other words, the payout on these bonds is periodically adjusted according to the cost of living.
Funds like the iShares TIPS Bond ETF (exchange-traded fund) could give you access to this stream of passive income.
