The Golden Globes are unique. They're not just the "party" awards show, but they're the only major one that combines film and TV. And in this age of prestige TV, that means you get to see the full gamut of Hollywood celebrity, from Jamie Alexander of "Blindspot" to, well, Leonardo DiCaprio. Check out all the looks from the red carpet this year here:
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The sharp decline in Chinese stock markets on Monday is a reminder of two things. The first is the continued fragility of the Chinese market. The second is that any economic dysfunction has political implications, both in Chinese domestic and foreign policy. This, in turn, will affect Chinese economic performance. It is essential, therefore, to understand Chinese national strategy.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been portrayed as an increasingly aggressive country prepared to challenge the United States. At the same time, aside from relatively minor forays into the South and East China Seas, China has avoided significant involvement in the troubles roiling in the rest of Eurasia. There is a gap between what is generally expected of China and what China actually does. To understand what China’s actual national strategy is, it is helpful to follow the logic inherent in the following five maps.
Let’s begin by defining what we mean by China. First, there is the China we see on maps. But there is also the China inhabited by the Han Chinese, the main Chinese ethnic group. Maps of the Chinese state and the ethnic group would look very different.
Han China is surrounded within China by regions populated by what are essentially other nations. The four most significant are Tibet in the southwest, Xinjiang in the northwest, Inner Mongolia in the north, and Manchuria in the northeast. The first three are recognized by Beijing as autonomous regions while Manchuria is a larger region made up of three northeastern provinces. Obviously, there are Mongolians who live in Han China and Han Chinese who live in Inner Mongolia. No region is homogeneous, but these four regions, with the limited exception of Manchuria, are not dominated by ethnic Han Chinese. About half the territory of what we consider China actually consists of Han Chinese people.
These four regions are a buffer around China, providing strategic depth to repel invaders. All four, at one time or another, resisted Chinese domination, as Tibet and Xinjiang still do today. Xinjiang is predominantly Muslim, and an insurgency and terrorist movement is particularly active there. Tibet is less active but no less opposed to Chinese domination. Inner Mongolia and Manchuria are generally content at the moment. The mood in these regions varies, but China must always be concerned to maintain control.
Not incidentally, a very similar geography emerges when we look at rainfall patterns. Roughly 15 inches of annual rainfall is needed to maintain an agricultural economy. This line, called the 15-inch Isohyet, is shown in the next map along with areas of population density in the People’s Republic of China.
The area east of the 15-inch Isohyet is Han China plus parts of Manchuria. The area to the west and north are the buffers along with some Han Chinese regions that are lightly populated. So one of the reasons Han China can dominate the buffer states is its relative population advantage. But this also means that the population of China, totaling 1.4 billion people, is crowded into a much smaller area than an ordinary map would show and much farther from most neighbors of the PRC. But for now, the rainfall line roughly defines the limits of what we think of as the Chinese.
The next map adds to this picture. It is a map of annual per capita income by province. It shows an underlying division in China east of the 15-inch Isohyet. First, the economic difference between Han China and the rest of the PRC is striking. Per capita income in the western buffers is between 30 and 50 percent lower than the median income in the rest of China. And the area in China that is above the median—some more than 100 percent above the median—is a thin strip of provinces along the coast. The interior of Han China is not as bad off as the western buffers, but is still well below conditions along the coast. Economically, only the coast is above the median. Every other area is below it. And this defines a division in Han China itself.
However, per capita income is not a measure of economic well-being since it doesn’t tell us anything about the distribution of wealth. A better measure is household income. According to World Bank data, over 650 million Chinese citizens live in households earning less than $4 a day. Just under half of those live in households earning less than $3.10 a day—or about $1,000 a year.
This alone doesn't capture the true reality. Obviously, the overwhelming majority of these people live outside the coastal region since the coastal region is much wealthier. Put another way, most Chinese wealth is concentrated 200 miles from the coast. The next 500–1,000 miles west is a land of Han Chinese living in Third World poverty. The China that most Westerners think about is the thin strip along the coast. The fact is that China is an overwhelmingly poor country with a thin veneer of prosperity.
We can already see some strategic realities emerging, but before we turn to that, we need to consider the next map—a terrain map of the areas surrounding China.
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Founded in 1994, Yahoo is the oldest web company still in business.
So it's not surprising that it feels like almost everyone you meet in Silicon Valley spent some time at Yahoo.
That includes these 23 power players who continue to be a big part of the tech industry.
Some of them were early Yahoo members that led its massive growth. Some were brought in later in an attempt to revitalize its slowing business.
The large number of Yahoo alumni now leading innovative Silicon Valley companies reflect Yahoo's legacy in the internet industry and its long, turbulent history.
SEE ALSO: The 11 highest-paying jobs at Yahoo
Weiner joined Yahoo after Terry Semel, the former Warner Brothers executive, was hired as Yahoo CEO in 2001. He was working at Semel's investment group called Windsor Media at the time, and was brought in to work on the corporate development and M&A side of Yahoo's business.
Weiner spent over 7 years at Yahoo, but left in 2008, a few months before joining LinkedIn.
Rosensweig spent over 5 years as Yahoo's COO. He was a popular executive and active operator at Yahoo during the Terry Semel era.
Rosensweig cut his teeth at Ziff Davis, the publisher behind companies like PC Magazine and ZDNet.
One of his biggest legacies at Yahoo could have been the acquisition of Facebook, which fell apart at the last minute.
Goldberg joined Yahoo when his online music company Launch Media was acquired in 2001. He was in charge of Yahoo's music business, and spent nearly 6 years there, before moving on to run his own company called SurveyMonkey, an online survey platform last valued at $2 billion.
Unfortunately, Goldberg died during his vacation last year. He's still remembered as one of the most beloved tech executives in Silicon Valley.
Sean Penn’s exclusive interview with Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán may have gotten Mexico’s drug kingpin captured, but that is only one mistake the intrepid, self-described “journalist” made when he traveled deep into the Sierra Madre.
A few caveats. First, I actually like Sean Penn, the actor. I enjoy his films and his acting. He is a unique and powerful on screen presence. Second, I am jealous. Of course I -- and many other journalists -- wanted this interview.
No journalist got as far as Penn did, exactly because Chapo was not interested in speaking to a journalist. But Penn is so wrapped up in his starring role as “journalist” that he forgets that he does not really represent any of us, much less our profession.
This is his -- and as it turns out Chapo’s -- fatal flaw. Ego is what drives this story, not journalism.
Here are five reasons why Penn failed as a journalist.
SEE ALSO: El Salvador is the bloodiest nation in the Western Hemisphere
Penn drops hints about his and his fixer’s motives for interviewing Chapo, but he is never forthright.
His fixer is Kate del Castillo, a Mexican actress who played La Reina del Sur in a soap opera. She is, by Penn’s account, a bit more realistic about her motives: she is interested in “making a film” about the drug lord and even manages to sneak in some product placement for a tequila brand “she is marketing.”
Penn, on the other hand, disguises his efforts as “journalism.” But his real interest appears to be in scooping Hollywood, who would undoubtedly pursue Chapo projects “with or without [Chapo’s] participation.”
Chapo seems to understand this and quizzes Penn about the movie business. Penn never comes clean. Instead he tells the drug lord, “when I do journalism, I take no payment.”
But by meeting Chapo, Penn would be positioned to make the definitive account, so he calls the editor of a magazine whose very foundation is the mixing of entertainment and journalism, Rolling Stone. It is a perfect match.
Throughout the story, the actor is very keen on making sure you know that he is afraid. The most gratuitous example was when Penn, while urinating, ruminates on the possibility of the worst kind of torture.
“I do consider it among my body parts vulnerable to the knives of irrational narco types, and take a fond last look, before tucking it back into my pants,” he writes.
But this fear is a facade. It is there to remind you (and himself) that he is courageous.
There are only two instances in which he appears to me to be in actual danger: when he is in a fast car and when there is a real possibility that Mexican forces may raid the camp. Neither of those instances involve anyone chopping off his sacred member. And even when he is in danger in the car, he reminds the readers that “I like speed. But not without my own hands on the wheel.”
If he were a Mexican journalist, these fears would be rational. Mexican journalists are threatened, killed and run from their homes routinely, as this excellent recent Washington Post story illustrates.
But he is Sean Penn. He is a rock star, not some small town Mexican journalist messing with the narcos’ agenda. He is the agenda.
The actor spends a good deal of time discussing the war on drugs during the article. This is a considerate, albeit superficial and somewhat clichéd view of what this all means in the big picture. But it rightly focuses on United States’ failings, hypocrisies and flawed, self-serving policies.
The subtext of Penn’s narrative is that there are victims who are simply taking advantage of “our insatiable appetite for illicit narcotics.”
Chapo is one of these victims. While he makes references to things like “carne asada,” or “grilled beef,” as a way of reminding us that there is human blood on Chapo’s hands, he is painted as a simple, yet charismatic man -- a real gentleman who goes to the trouble of ensuring that his female guests get to their sleeping quarters in one piece.
(The magazine glorifies him as well with a sidebar of his “close calls and narrow escapes.”)
Aside from trafficking tons of cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin -- which Penn has already justified in his earlier anti-drug war argument -- we do not hear a single thing about any crime committed by Chapo.
Penn spends most of his time fawning over Chapo’s power: his trucks, his weapons, his kid’s watch, his hundreds of men waiting for his orders. I can understand not wanting to confront a criminal who is arguably responsible for the murder of THOUSANDS of people about their decisions, but I do think an exploration of that subject is necessary.
SEE ALSO:El Chapo Profile
It can be direct or it can be subtle. That depends on the moment. And this is why it is important to understand that Penn is not a journalist. He does not have the experience to know when to push, when to be quiet; when to fondle an ego and when to challenge it; when to ask a direct question and when to put it in others’ mouths. He says they spent seven tequila-soaked hours together. They might as well have spent seven minutes.
“Whatever villainy is attributable to this man, and his indisputable street genius,” Penn writes, “He is also a humble, rural Mexican, whose perception of his place in the world offers a window into an extraordinary riddle of cultural disparity.”
The actual interview, which Penn and del Castillo later secure via video from the mountains, is even worse. There, Chapo is in complete control (his guy is asking Penn’s questions) and reinforces this narrative: he “defends” himself; he’s never picked a fight with anyone; he just wants to spend time with his family; and, just in case you were wondering, his relationship with his mother is “perfect."
It's easy to post photos on Facebook, but the company also has an app where you can keep it among friends.
Moments is about six months old, and it took a long time to gain traction, but now it's one of the top downloaded photo apps for iPhone.
Part of that is because Facebook is forcing some users to download Moments if they want to save their old synced photos. But a lot of it is just people sharing to each other so more people have to download it.
Here's a breakdown of how to use Moments so you know how to share privately and publicly when you want to.
SEE ALSO: This is the first book of photos ever made, and it's only images of British algae
Legendary British musician David Bowie died from cancer at the age of 69 on Sunday. In remembrance of Bowie's insanely cool life, here's a roundup of some of his iconic quotes.
SEE ALSO: David Bowie's 8 most memorable movie roles
Source: 60 Minutes, 2002.
Source: GQ
Source: International Business Times
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People experience temperatures differently and will have different needs. You probably know if you typically run hot or cold, however, it's always better to be too warm rather than risk not being warm enough when you’re spending any amount of time outside in the winter.
Leading the charge for your closet should be a down-filled parka or puffer jacket that’ll keep you warm, if not stylish at the same time.
In selecting this all-important coat, it is important to look for quality and also keep in mind a brand’s outerwear expertise; Canada Goose, Patagonia, and The North Face are fixtures of this clothing market, but they’re hardly the only worthwhile players.
Below, we rounded up 13 great options to consider adding to your collection. These picks should last you for years to come.
SEE ALSO: The 24 best-looking watches you can buy for under $300
SEE ALSO: 25 sneakers you can wear at the office
Uniqlo has developed a reputation for its warm outerwear and Heattech accessories. Its down jacket, pictured here, comes with a durable, water-repellent coating and detachable hood.
You may not be able to purchase the brand's popular Bean boots (many sizes are backordered until as late as March), but its down jackets are still largely in stock.
Cole Haan does more than footwear well; this cleanly quilted parka is sleek enough to layer over a suit. Its fixed hood and roomy cargo pockets give some additional utility to the design.
The past year was a busy one for the US Air Force.
From combatting ISIS in Iraq and Syria to carrying out training operations and integrating the F-35. In order to highlight the amazing successes of the Air Force in 2015, the branch compiled a year in pictures.
We have selected the best pictures of 2015 below.
SEE ALSO: These are the most incredible photos of the US Army in 2015
Tesla vehicles got a big tech upgrade over the weekend.
Elon Musk's car company rolled out its 7.1 software update on Sunday, which gave Model S and Model X vehicles equipped with Autopilot a new range of features.
All Tesla vehicles built since October of 2014 are equipped with the hardware for Autopilot, which offers safety features like automatic braking, lane switching and blind spot warnings.
But only Tesla owners who opt to pay $2,500 for the Autopilot convenience features get access to all of the high-tech tricks that come with each software update.
Here's what vehicles with the latest Autopilot update can currently do.
SEE ALSO: Why car executives at CES are talking about 'frenemies'
2016 is going to be an incredible year for video games — that much we already know. Here's just one of the dozens of examples of great-looking games coming out in 2016:
What you see above is a gorgeous new game for the PlayStation 4 named "Horizon Zero Dawn." In it, you control the hunter seen above as she tracks and hunts bio-mechanical animals in what appears to be the distant future of Earth.
Like this hulking monstrosity:
It's a massive open-world game, and it's arriving at some point in 2016 exclusively on PlayStation 4.
SEE ALSO: The best video games you should be playing this holiday season
There are roughly 80 countries that are considered tax havens. These are secrecy jurisdictions with incredibly low to no taxes. (See also: 7 States With the Lowest Taxes for Retirees).
Billionaires and millionaires flock to these places to take advantage of tax loopholes that allow them to establish offshore bank accounts and shell corporations, and pay virtually nothing.
By doing so, they avoid the otherwise high tax rates they would pay in their home countries, without renouncing their citizenship.
Recently, the IRS announced plans to go after U.S. citizens holding offshore accounts. Still, that hasn't been a deterrent for a lot of wealthy individuals seeking to escape steep tax implications. Done correctly, offshore banking is completely legal.
And you don't have to have tons of cash in order to seek out the reprieve tax havens offer. Because, in addition to the lenient tax laws, many of these nations are exotic travel destinations that offer outside investors simplified pathways to citizenship.
Take a closer look.
SEE ALSO: A former banker shares his top 5 tips to build wealth
Best known for the scuba diving and its astonishing Barrier Reef, Belize is a tropical paradise in the Caribbean Sea and just the place for anyone seeking discretion. English is the country's native language, though many habitants also speak Spanish. There are two pathways to citizenship: Permanent Residence and the Qualified Retired Person (QRP) program.
Permanent Residence status is applicable if you intend to earn income as an employee. Otherwise, you would be considered a QRP and all you have to do is spend four weeks of the year in Belize, while meeting a minimum yearly retirement income threshold. As a QRP, foreign income is tax-exempt and there's no tax on capital gains or inheritances.
Language: English, Spanish, and Creole
Population: 332,000
Another Caribbean oasis, The British Virgin Islands (BVI) has long been known for its banking secrecy. BVI's income tax rate is 0% — there's no corporation, capital gains, gift, sales, profit, or inheritance tax. And property owners or real estate investors can become part-time residents, which permits you to stay in the country six months out of the year. There is a nominal property tax of 1.5% of the assessed value per annum.
Language: English
Population: 32,680
The Cayman Islands has been on the radar for multinational U.S.-based Fortune 500 companies with offshore subsidiaries for decades. Apple, IBM, and others are just a few on the list. The country has no corporate tax — and no taxes on income, capital gains, profits, or estates, either.
Language: English
Population: 58,435
The majestic plesiosaur swam through shallow seas millions of years ago, eating fish like a dinosaur-era Loch Ness monster.
A scientific debate over how plesiosaurs swim has been raging since the first weird-looking plesiosaur fossil was identified in 1824, and a new study has just offered the strongest evidence to settle it.
Source: Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science
Source: Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science
You know a memorable photo when you see one, but now so does a new artificial intelligence (AI) system called LaMem.
MIT's website lets you upload your photos to try out the algorithm, which we first saw over at Discover Magazine.
To create LaMem, the researchers showed a random set of 60,000 images to users of Amazon's Mechanical Turk site.
Then, as Turk users were shown photos, one image would appear every so often to see if people remembered it.
Using photo-recall data for many different photos, the researchers hammered out a few principles of memorable images and coded LaMem into existence.
Here's how it works — and how it fared when we uploaded some unarguably iconic images.
SEE ALSO: 12 of the most impressive professors at MIT
Source: MIT
Source: MIT
Four exquisite first-generation Corvettes, including the "Purple People Eater" race car and four VIN #001 cars, will cross the block at muscle car powerhouse Barrett-Jackson's annual auction in Scottsdale, AZ this month.
The "Purple People Eater" won a national sports car championship in 1959, and was named for a 1958 number one single that told the tale of a one-eyed monster come to earth to join a rock-and-roll band.
The name would later be used for the 1970's Minnesota Vikings defensive line.
Racing driver Jim Jeffords drove his Purple People Eater Corvettes, sponsored by a Chicago car dealership, to an incredible 29 victories in 42 races over the 1958 and 1959 seasons, never finishing anywhere worse than second place.
The car spent a decade forgotten in the corner of a restoration shop as a paint mixing table, and was restored from dilapidated condition once owners Ken Heckert and Chip Miller discovered its racing heritage. It has been fitted with the appropriate — though limited — racing technology of the era.
The auction will also feature three serial number 001 cars: the first vehicles to roll off the Chevy production line during the 1955, 1956, and 1957 model years.
The Corvettes, which are to be sold as a packaged lot, are excellent representations of a decade of chrome, tail fins, and American economic prosperity.
Also indicative of the era, the cars do not come with seat belts: there were no belts offered on the 1955 model, and they were a dealer-installed option in 1956 and 1957, according to Chevrolet fan site SuperChevy.
For the true Corvette enthusiast, the cars demonstrate three years of transformation for the first-generation, pre-Stingray 'Vette, highlighted by the 1956 introduction of the famous "coves," or sunken fenders, usually painted a contrasting color.
In October 2014, Kelly Tousley and Curtiss O'Rorke Stedman vowed to quit their jobs, leave their home base in Juneau, Alaska, and see the US by "paying gas, not rent."
The couple bought a 14-by-seven-foot utility trailer and spent the next nine months converting it into what would be their new home for at least a year.
"We're proving we can spend the same amount of money (if not less) traveling across North America, than paying rent in one location," they write on their blog, "Pay Gas, Not Rent."
It's been seven months since they officially hit the road on May 31, 2015. They've been across the country and back, from Alaska to Michigan, down to Florida and around to Colorado, with stops in Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, and Alabama along the way.
The couple, both 27, spoke to Business Insider about their new lifestyle: What it looks like, the reality of working on the road, and how they afford it:
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Before "going tiny," the couple was living and working in Juneau, Alaska. O'Rorke Stedman taught high school English and Tousley worked in social services while completing her masters degree in early childhood special education.
"After four years of being 'professional adults,' we realized we wanted more out of life,"they write on their blog. A passion for travel and desire to live lighter culminated in the plan to build and live out of a 98-square-foot tiny house on wheels.
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Another reason the couple hit the road was so O'Rorke Stedman could pursue his dream of playing music professionally. He says touring full-time has offered him creative freedom that wasn't possible in Juneau, where he could only play on the weekends and during the summer while he wasn't teaching.
His one man band, known as "Cousin Curtiss" blends Americana, blues, pseudo-electronica, and root-stomp sounds.
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When it came time to build the framework of their tiny house, the options were slim.
"We looked into campers and RV's and there was nothing available in Juneau," they tell Business Insider.
Access to Juneau, Alaska's remote capital, is limited. Everything coming in and out must be flown or ferried in, so it would have been incredibly expensive to ship something as large as an RV. "To get anything to us — which would have been an older model of anything — was about $10,000. That instantly limited us."
"We chose to use a utility trailer because it was feasible to build it ourselves,"they write. "Not having any carpenter experience, we didn't trust ourselves to build a custom frame, like other tiny houses you may have seen. We decided to opt out of the van life because we wanted separation from our home. If we decided to camp out somewhere awesome for a week, we wanted the option to park our home and just take the truck."
They found a nearly new utility trailer in Petersburg, Alaska, just south of Juneau, and pulled the trigger.
"Without even seeing the trailer, we bought it for $4,750," they recall.
That was only the beginning. The couple spent the next nine months turning the trailer into their new home.
Above, they're pictured with their dogs Sawyer and Doug.
Warning: There are spoilers ahead for "Star Wars: the Force Awakens."
The final scenes of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" take viewers to a distant, remote planet. Similarly, the real-life stage for Luke Skywalker's hideway is a remote island located off the coast of Ireland called Skellig Michael.
Now that "The Force Awakens" has been in theaters for a few weeks, Ireland's tourism site wants to show off the island where the crew filmed. Discover Ireland even released a brief behind-the-scenes video to attract visitors.
There's a good chance we'll be seeing more of Skellig Michael in 2017's next "Star Wars" movie since that's where the film leaves off.
Keep reading to explore Ireland's remote destination.
Sources: Skellig Experience, World Heritage Ireland
I’ve made a lot of financial mistakes over the years – some obvious, some not so much. If I’ve learned anything, though, it’s that the mistakes you make yesterday do not define you today.
Every single day is a new day, a day in which you can fix your bad habits and work to right the wrongs of your past.
This article is a long list of some of the many personal finance mistakes I’ve made in my life, along with notes on what I did to turn those mistakes around.
SEE ALSO: Now that I'm out of debt, here are 6 misguided beliefs I no longer have about money
Whenever I looked at my checking account balance, I’d have some idea in my head of how much money should be left, and there was always less there than I expected. It seemed like money just evaporated and I really didn’t have any idea where it went. I’d assume that I must have used it for something worthwhile that I had forgotten about, and if I looked through the actual list of withdrawals, it never seemed wrong. It just never made sense.
I needed to overcome this mistake because it meant that my spending was literally out of control. I truly did not know where all of the money was going, and that made it very hard to step back and see where I was making spending mistakes. It also made it impossible to see where things like identity theft were occurring.
How did I fix it? I started keeping a detailed spending log using an old spiral-bound Mead pocket notebook. Whenever I spent any money at all, I wrote down that expense in that pocket notebook, explaining exactly what I bought. I also saved every single receipt that I received.
Then, every few days, I went through those receipts and recorded them in my personal finance program of choice (which, at the time, was Microsoft Money, which is now defunct). Over time, I began to realize the truth: I was wasting a lot of money on small, unnecessary, completely forgettable things.
Don’t get me wrong – I did save a little. The person I trusted most at the time for career and life advice basically demanded that I do so. However, instead of looking at it as something really useful for my future, I looked at it merely as something to check off my to-do list.
I ended up contributing about as little as I possibly could. My first employer did offer some nice matching funds, but I only scooped up some of those matching funds because I contributed so little.
A much better move would have been to contribute a lot to retirement, which is essentially what I’m doing right now. I wish I had contributed 10% of my income at a minimum, and perhaps as much as 20%. If that were the case, I’d be doing great right now. I ended up spending money that should have been saved for retirement on the stupid stuff I discovered with that first mistake.
The truth is that when you contribute more to a retirement plan, the only thing you actually “cut” from your spending are the dumbest and most useless expenses, which aren’t really much of a loss in terms of your quality of life.
How is that possible? Well, we ate out several times a week, and at least a couple of those meals were at very nice restaurants. We never ordered a meal without drinks, either. I often went out to lunch with coworkers, and Sarah did so on occasion (her job wasn’t as prone to lunching with coworkers as mine was). When we did prepare food at home, it was usually either convenience food or loaded down with expensive ingredients. We always had purchased beverages in the fridge, too, and we usually had a few bottles of wine on hand as well.
This added up to monthly food-related spending that often approached $1,000, believe it or not. That’s a lot of money, especially for two people.
So, how did we fix it? First of all, we started to realize that by eating out so often, we really didn’t appreciate it any more. These expensive meals were kind of the norm and not anything special. Not only that, many of the meals we ordered there were pretty simple things that we could prepare at home. It turned out that our biggest obstacle to preparing more foods at home was our lack of confidence in the kitchen, so we simply tried making more things at home – and more challenging things, too.
We also figured out pretty quickly that many of the expensive ingredients we were buying were largely unnecessary. They were either solely for a small moment of convenience or were minor elements. We scaled back and started using more produce, dried beans and rice, spices, and other elements in our dishes. We cut out most of the soda and alcohol, switching to water as our primary beverage. The end result? Our food expenses dropped through the floor. We now spend barely half as much as we spent back then and we’re now a family of five.
How does a smaller waist, sharper mind, healthier heart, and better skin sound for a New Year's resolution?
Believe it or not, researchers have found that many of us can reap these benefits, and more, by following a simple rule: Eat more plants.
In fact, many of the top diets of 2016, according to the latest US News diet rankings report, are plant-based, meaning they focus on pairing modest amounts of lean protein, like from poultry and fish, with loads of fruits, veggies, and whole grains.
Read on to learn how a plant-based diet can help transform your body inside and out:
RELATED: This is the single best diet for your overall health
Plenty of research suggests that vegetarians tend to consume fewer calories, and thus weigh less and have lower body mass indexes than non-vegetarians.
While following a plant-based diet doesn't necessarily mean going full-blown vegetarian, opting largely for fiber-packed fruits, veggies, and whole grains in lieu of meat will likely leave you feeling fuller on fewer calories.
Too many diets leave us hungry at the end of the day. But a plant-based diet means chowing down on loads of fruits and veggies that are packed with fiber, which keeps us feeling full.
The Mayo Clinic recommends that women get at least 21 grams of fiber a day while men should shoot for at least 30 grams. A single cup of raspberries will gain you 8 grams of fiber while a cup of lentils gets you 15.6 grams.
Be sure to increase your fiber intake gradually (otherwise you might suffer bowel irritation) and drink lots of water, which your body needs for fiber to function properly.
Many of the vitamins, pigments, and phytochemicals (some of which are responsible for color, like the deep purple of blueberries) in fruits and veggies contribute to healthy skin.
The lycopene in tomatoes, for example, may help protect your skin from sun damage, and the Vitamin C in sweet potatoes could help smooth wrinkles by stimulating the production of collagen.
Four years ago at the Detroit Auto Show, Lexus debuted the concept car that inspired the automaker to enter the luxury sedan market.
At the same auto show today, Lexus finally unveiled its much-awaited, luxury LC 500 Coupe, which will price at more than $100,000, according to a Bloomberg report.
Here's a look at the new luxury contender:
“The LC 500 has been an important product for Lexus and me personally,” Akio Toyoda, Chief Branding Officer and Master Driver for Lexus, wrote in a press release.
"This flagship luxury coupe’s proportions, stunning design and performance make a strong statement about our brand’s emotional direction and will grow the Lexus luxury appeal globally," he continued.
Dividends are a great way for investors to generate cash flow, and even beat the market long term. But dividends aren't a guaranteed payment from a company, and still require cash flow from operations to be maintained. For that reason, they can be higher risk than a lot of investors think.
Below are three companies that I think will have a hard time maintaining their dividends in 2016.
One of the last remaining offshore drilling companies paying a dividend is Noble (NYSE:NE), and I think that ends in 2016. The company reduced its payout after the third quarter from $0.375 per share to $0.15 per share, but even that may be too much in today's environment.
Earnings from continuing operations, excluding one-time gains, were $0.72 per share in the third quarter, and that figure will likely decline in 2016. Backlog dropped from $8.7 billion after the second quarter to $8.1 billion after the third quarter as new contracts dried up. Also, $35 per barrel oil will cause an offshore drilling slump to be extended into 2016.
It isn't that Noble couldn't pay a dividend in 2016; it's that the money could be better used elsewhere. Long-term debt stood at $4.5 billion at the end of the third quarter, and less leverage on the balance sheet would be welcome with new drilling contracts hard to find. Most major competitors have already slashed their dividends to $0; it wouldn't be a shock to investors to get a lower dividend.
When dividend yields rise to double digits, it can be a sign that investors don't really expect the payout to last long. That's the case with TerraForm Power (NASDAQ:TERP)heading into 2016. As I'm writing, the stock yields a whopping 11.1%, which is so high it will create problems for the company long term.
Yieldcos like TerraForm Power rely on low dividend yields to fund acquisitions of new projects that will maintain and grow the dividend. The plan is to sell new shares and debt to buy new projects that generate a higher return than the cost of new capital. That can't happen with a dividend yield in double digits.
In 2016, I think TerraForm Power would be better off reducing its dividend to either fund asset acquisitions, or reduce a debt load that stood at $2.5 billion at the end of the third quarter. A lower payout would be a prudent move to reduce risk this year.
It may seem outlandish on the surface, but I think 2016 will prove to be a tough year for big oil stocks. They've held up fairly well under lower oil prices because they have diverse businesses, but $35 per-barrel oil, and gasoline under $2 per gallon doesn't leave a lot left for profit. One that could be in big trouble is Chevron(NYSE:CVX), which is already paying more in dividends than it can afford.
The problem is easy to see in the chart. Earnings are plunging, and are now almost below what's paid out to each share in the form of a dividend.
In 2016, analysts are expecting that earnings will fall to $3.42 per share -- meaning the coverage ratio of earnings to the dividend would be just 80%.
Worse yet, even after slashing its capital spending plan to $25 billion - $28 billion, down from $35 billion last year. The company is still expecting to spend more on drilling for oil and paying dividends than it generates in cash from operations. That means the only way to pay the dividend is to add debt, which isn't a good sign after debt increased from $27.8 billion to $35.9 billion during the past nine months.
Chevron's best move in 2016 will be slashing its dividend to keep cash inflows more in line with outflows. Whether or not it does so may be another story.
