Finance Xpress

Posted by: Adam McCann

Securing a child’s academic success begins with choosing the right schools. But how can parents decide where to enroll their kids? Because children develop and learn at different rates, the ideal answer to that question varies based on each student’s needs. Unfortunately, most parents can’t afford to place their children in exclusive, private or preparatory schools that give their students greater individual attention.

For the majority of U.S. families, public education is the only option. But the quality of public school systems varies widely from state to state and is often a question of funding. Public elementary and secondary education money usually flows from three sources: the federal, state and local governments. According to the U.S. Department of Education, states contribute nearly as much as local governments, while the federal government supplies the smallest share. Some researchers have found that more resources — or taxes paid by residents — typically result in better school-system performance.

Unlike other research that focuses primarily on academic outcomes or school finance, WalletHub’s analysis takes a more comprehensive approach. It accounts for performance, funding, safety, class size and instructor credentials. To determine the top-performing school systems in America, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 29 key metrics. Read on for our findings, expert insight from a panel of researchers and a full description of our methodology.

1. Main Findings
2. Ask the Experts
3. Methodology

Main Findings Embed on your website<iframe src="//d2e70e9yced57e.cloudfront.net/wallethub/embed/5335/geochart-school1.html" width="556" height="347" frameBorder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> <div style="width:556px;font-size:12px;color:#888;">Source: <a href="https://ift.tt/2LNsrRH>

 

Public School Ranking by State

Overall Rank (1 = Best)	State	Total Score	‘Quality’ Rank	‘Safety’ Rank
1	Massachusetts	67.85	2	1
2	New Jersey	64.78	1	11
3	Connecticut	62.36	3	12
4	Virginia	61.42	7	2
5	Vermont	60.71	6	4
6	Minnesota	58.98	4	23
7	New Hampshire	58.93	9	6
8	Nebraska	57.17	11	7
9	North Dakota	56.81	5	43
10	Wyoming	56.76	8	29
11	Wisconsin	56.57	10	27
12	Delaware	55.10	22	3
13	Kentucky	54.86	13	18
14	Iowa	54.45	12	33
15	Maine	54.36	20	5
16	Illinois	54.24	14	30
17	Colorado	53.49	17	10
18	Rhode Island	53.48	19	9
19	Maryland	53.04	15	17
20	Kansas	52.65	18	16
21	South Dakota	52.50	16	25
22	Indiana	51.42	21	28
23	Utah	51.20	24	13
24	New York	51.07	23	14
25	Montana	49.33	25	36
26	Florida	49.05	28	20
27	Pennsylvania	48.77	26	35
28	Ohio	47.98	30	19
29	Washington	47.67	31	8
30	Missouri	47.14	27	44
31	North Carolina	46.97	29	39
32	Idaho	46.56	35	22
33	Texas	46.44	33	31
34	Tennessee	45.98	36	26
35	Georgia	45.66	34	38
36	Hawaii	44.74	38	32
37	Michigan	44.15	32	49
38	California	42.43	40	37
39	South Carolina	41.67	39	41
40	Oklahoma	41.03	45	15
41	Arkansas	40.67	37	50
42	Alaska	40.21	46	21
43	Nevada	40.16	42	40
44	Oregon	39.43	41	46
45	District of Columbia	38.94	43	48
46	Alabama	38.47	44	47
47	West Virginia	37.86	48	24
48	Mississippi	37.40	47	42
49	Arizona	34.61	50	34
50	Louisiana	29.93	49	51
51	New Mexico	28.81	51	45

 

 

Note: Spendings Ranking refers to “Total Current Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary Day Schools per Student” (Highest Amount = Rank 1)

Embed on your website<iframe src="//d2e70e9yced57e.cloudfront.net/wallethub/embed/5335/geochart-school2.html" width="700" height="450" frameBorder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> <div style="width:700px;font-size:12px;color:#888;">Source: <a href="https://ift.tt/2LNsrRH>

 

Ask the Experts

Giving students a good education is crucial for the future of the country. That responsibility falls to parents, educators and leaders alike. To expand the discussion, we asked a panel of experts to share their thoughts on the following key questions:

1. How will the education policy agenda being pursued by the Trump administration affect the quality of K-12 education across states?
2. Does variation in per-pupil spending explain most of the variation in school quality?
3. What can state and local policymakers do to improve their school systems without raising taxes?
4. In setting a child up for success, how important is the quality of the school relative to other factors (family, neighborhood, etc.)?
5. In evaluating the best and worst school systems, what are the top five indicators?

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• Richard M. Gonzales Ph.D. – Assistant Professor in Residence, Director of Educational Leadership Preparation Programs, Department of Educational Leadership, University of Connecticut, Neag School of Education
• Mark Fabrizi Associate Professor, Associate Chair, Education Department, CARE Coordinator, Director, Liberal Studies Major, Eastern Connecticut State University
• Cristobal Rodriguez Ph.D. – Director of Graduate Studies, School of Education, Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies,Charles H Thompson Lecture-Colloquium Committee Chair, Howard University
• Joseph Renzulli Director, Renzulli Center for Creativity, Gifted Education, and Talent Development, University of Connecticut Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor, The Lynn and Ray Neag Endowed Chair for Talent Development
• Leslie T. Fenwick Ph.D. – Dean Emeritus and Professor, Howard University School of Education

Methodology

In order to determine the best and worst states for public-school education, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across two key dimensions, including “Quality” and “Safety.”

We evaluated those dimensions using 29 relevant metrics, which are listed below with their corresponding weights. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the highest quality of public K–12 education.

Finally, we determined each state and the District’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to rank-order our sample.

Quality – Total Points: 80

• Presence of Public Schools in “Top 700 Best U.S. Schools”: Full Weight (~3.64 Points)Note: This metric measures the number of public schools in U.S. News & World Report’s “Top 700 Best U.S. Schools” ranking adjusted by the number of public schools for each state in the U.S. News & World Report sample.
• Blue Ribbon Schools per Capita: Full Weight (~3.64 Points)Note: The National Blue Ribbon Schools Program recognizes public and private elementary, middle, and high schools based on their overall academic excellence or their progress in closing achievement gaps among student subgroups.
• High School Graduation Rate Among Low-Income Students: Full Weight (~3.64 Points)
• Projected High School Graduation Rate Increase Between 2018-2019 and 2031-2032 School Years: Full Weight (~3.64 Points)
• Dropout Rate: Double Weight (~7.27 Points)
• Math Test Scores: Double Weight (~7.27 Points)Note: This metric measures the scores earned by fourth and eighth graders.
• Reading Test Scores: Double Weight (~7.27 Points)Note: This metric measures the scores earned by fourth and eighth graders.
• Share of 2018 High School Class Scoring “3” or Higher on Advanced Placement Exams: Double Weight (~7.27 Points)
• Median SAT Score: Double Weight (~7.27 Points)
• Median ACT Score: Double Weight (~7.27 Points)
• Share of High School Graduates Who Completed ACT and/or SAT: Double Weight (~7.27 Points)Note: For this metric, the percentage sum may be larger than 100 percent, considering some students completed both standardized tests. However, no data specifying the number of students who did so are available.
• Division of SAT Results by Percentile: Full Weight (~3.64 Points)
• Division of ACT Results by Percentile: Full Weight (~3.64 Points)
• Pupil-Teacher Ratio: Full Weight (~3.64 Points)
• Share of Licensed/Certified Public K–12 Teachers: Full Weight (~3.64 Points)

Safety – Total Points: 20

• Share of Threatened/Injured High School Students: Double Weight (~2.67 Points)Note: This metric measures the share of public school students in grades 9 to 12 who reported being threatened or injured with a weapon on school property.
• Share of High School Students Not Attending School Due to Safety Concerns: Full Weight (~1.33 Points)Note: This metric measures the share of public school students in grades 9 to 12 who reported not attending school because they felt unsafe at or on their way to or from school.
• Share of Families Who Agree Their Children Go to Safe Schools: Full Weight (~1.33 Points)Note: Share of children aged 6-17 years whose parents definitely agree that their children are safe at school.
• Share of High School Students with Access to Illegal Drugs: Full Weight (~1.33 Points)Note: This metric measures the share of public school students in grades 9 to 12 who reported that illegal drugs were made available to them on school property.
• Share of High School Students Participating in Violence: Full Weight (~1.33 Points)Note: This metric measures the share of public school students in grades 9 to 12 who reported involvement in a physical fight at least once during the previous 12 months on school property.
• Share of Armed High School Students: Full Weight (~1.33 Points)Note: This metric measures the share of public school students in grades 9 to 12 who reported carrying a weapon on school property.
• Number of School Shootings (2000-present (May 10, 2019)): Full Weight (~1.33 Points)
• Presence of Adopted and Enacted Laws Regulating Mandatory School Resource Officers: Full Weight (~1.33 Points)
• Bullying Incidence Rate: Double Weight (~2.67 Points)
• Disciplinary Incidence Rate: Full Weight (~1.33 Points)Note: Rate measured per 100,000 students.
• Youth Incarceration Rate: Full Weight (~1.33 Points)Note: Rate measured per 100,000 population aged 20 years and younger.
• School Safety Plan Requirement: Full Weight (~1.33 Points)Note: This binary metric measures whether a state requires or not a school safety plan.
• School Safety Audit Requirement: Half Weight (~0.67 Points)Note: This binary metric measures whether a state requires or not a school safety audit.
• Safety Grade of Roads Around School: Half Weight (~0.67 Points)Note: School safety scores and rankings are based on unsafe driving events detected by the Zendrive platform within school areas.

Videos for News Use:

• YouTube (for web embedding National)
• YouTube (for web embedding Massachusetts)
• Raw files (for editing into clips)

 

Sources: Data used to create this ranking were collected from the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Education, National Conference of State Legislatures, National Center for Education Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative, Education Commission of the States, U.S. News & World Report, College Board, Ballotpedia, ACT and Zendrive.

Image: wavebreakmedia / Shutterstock.com

from Wallet HubWallet Hub


via Finance Xpress

Retiring soon? Then it might also be time to retire your current credit card. Here’s our list of the 7 best credit cards for retirees.

Finding and using the right credit card makes it easy to get rewarded for your purchases. And it’ll give you the spending power you need to save some serious cash.

But as you age and your needs change, it’s crucial that you reconsider your credit card. In this article, I’ll review some of the best credit cards for retirees. Make sure that if you’re retired, you consider one of these so you can enjoy the benefits they have to offer.

Credit Card	Best For
Blue Cash Preferred from American Express	Grocery Shoppers
Capital One® Venture® Rewards Credit Card	Travelers
Chase Freedom Visa	General Cash Back
HSBC Gold Mastercard® Credit Card	Transferring Your Debt
Costco Anywhere Visa Card	If You Drive a Lot
Netspend Visa Prepaid Card	If You Prefer a Prepaid Card
Credit One Bank Unsecured Platinum Visa	If Your Credit is Bad

1. Best Card for Grocery Shoppers: Blue Cash Preferred from American Express

Everyone has to buy groceries. So if you want rewards for making purchases you make anyway, the Blue Cash Preferred card is one of the best.

You can earn a lot of cash back each time you head to the grocery store. So it’s an excellent card for those who love to eat in and do a lot of cooking themselves, too.

I’ve used other cards that promised high cash back at the store, but they didn’t deliver. Often, it was due to things like rotating categories or low caps on rewards.

Well, this one does deliver. When you use the Blue Cash Preferred card at a grocery store, you’ll get 6% cash back, up to a total of $6,000 each year. This is an incredible value.

It also offers 3% back at select department stores and gas stations. Additionally, you get 1% cash back on your other purchases.

When you get your cash back, you’ll receive it in the form of reward dollars. These can then be redeemed as a credit on your statement.

I’ve found this to be a great way to reduce the amount you have to pay when paying your bill in full each month. Also, you don’t need to complete any particular process to get set up with getting your cash back – it’s automatic.

Also, there’s a great signup bonus. Currently, you can get $200 back after you spend $1,000 in the first three months of having your card. One thing to consider with this card is the $95 annual fee, as you want to make sure you’ll earn more back than you pay in fees.

2. Best Card for Travelers: Capital One® Venture® Rewards Credit Card

One thing I love about this card is the earnings rate. You’ll get 2X unlimited miles on all your purchases. This includes all purchases, not ones that only fall in specific bonus categories.

This means you can earn plenty of miles without having to worry about when you need to use your card. While you may not maximize your miles, you’ll limit your time and frustration.

The Capital One® Venture® Rewards Credit Card helps you cut down on how much you spend on travel. This allows you to instead focus on seeing the world. While there is an annual fee of $95, if you use your card on a regular basis you’ll be able to offset that fee by earning miles. The fee is waived for the first year, too, which is nice.

Because you can use miles to book travel through the Capital One travel portal, there’s a lot of flexibility, too. You often won’t have to worry about seating, airline, or hotel restrictions, for instance.

You can transfer your Capital One miles to airline partners, too, which gives you a nice boost if you use a specific airline. In addition, you’ll earn 10 miles per dollar on thousands of places to stay when you pay for a hotel using Hotels.com, through January 2020.

This is great for retirees wanting to travel on their own time without issues. And you can also redeem the miles you’ve earned for travel statement credits if you want.

The Capital One® Venture® Rewards Credit Card has no foreign transaction fees. This can save you a lot of money when you’re in another country and need to pay for something. You’ll also receive up to $100 credit for Global Entry or TSA Pre-check when you use your Venture card.

Finally, the card comes with an excellent signup bonus. You’ll get 50,000 bonus miles after spending $3,000 in the first 90 days. This is equivalent to $500 in travel statement credits.

3. Best Card for General Cash Back: Chase Freedom Visa

The Chase Freedom Visa is for retirees who want to maximize their cash back, and are willing to be strategic. If you keep track of the categories offering rewards, you can earn plenty of cash back.There isn’t an annual fee, but you need to be aware of what categories will get you the highest rewards each quarter. You have to enroll to earn the higher amount of 5% back (up to $1,500) per quarter. Otherwise, you’ll receive 1% back, which is still better than nothing, I guess.

The current signup bonus gives you $150 back if you spend $500 or more in the first three months of having the card. For a card with no annual fee and substantial cash back rewards, this is a great bonus.

I love that there are a few ways to redeem the money you earn, too. This means that you won’t have to worry about how to get your rewards. You can either:

• Deposit the cash into your bank account
• Use it as a statement credit, or
• Transfer them as points to your eligible Chase card

4. Best Card if You Want to Transfer Your Debt: HSBC Gold Mastercard® Credit Card

If you’ve entered retirement with some debt, it’s smart to consider a balance transfer. This will help you knock out the debt as fast as possible. The HSBC Gold Mastercard is, hands down, the best option if you have a decent amount of debt you want to transfer.

This card offers a surprising 0% APR on all balance transfers for as long as 18 months. That gives you plenty of time to pay off your debt without high-interest rates.

Most credit cards only offer a low APR intro period of 12 months. So it’s easy to see how this card differs from others that are available.

Besides offering one of the best balance transfer deals we’ve seen in a while, this card doesn’t have an annual fee. Also, the HSBC Gold Mastercard offers its users $0 liability for unauthorized purchases. This way you won’t ever have to worry about a lost or stolen credit card.

Finally, you’ll never pay foreign transaction fees. This makes it a viable option for traveling, too.

5. Best Card if You Drive a Lot: Costco Anywhere Visa Card

If you’re a Costco member and are on the road a lot, you need to consider the Costco Anywhere Visa Card. This credit card actually rewards you for spending money on gas.

With no annual fee as long as you keep up your paid Costco membership, you’ll enjoy many ways to earn cash back. You’ll also be able to use your card in other countries without paying a foreign transaction fee.

This card offers 4% cash back on your eligible gas purchases for the first $7,000 that you spend each year. Beyond that, you’ll get 1% back on additional gas purchases.

Outside of the significant cash back on gas, you’ll get:

• 3% cash back on eligible travel purchases and restaurants
• 2% cash back on purchases from Costco.com and Costco stores, and
• 1% back on all other purchases

The variable APR is in line with other cards, too. While this isn’t a terrible thing, you’ll want to make sure you pay your card off in full when you can.

6. Best Card if You Want a Prepaid Card Instead: Netspend Visa Prepaid Card

There’s no reason you can’t have a great prepaid card as a retiree and enjoy many of the same benefits of a credit card. The Netspend Visa Prepaid Card is one of the best prepaid cards for retirees. Especially if you want the most versatile prepaid card on the market.

I love that you have many options for loading funds, and the card offers high withdrawal limits. This way, you can get the cash you need without a problem.

But, there are high fees with this card. This is something you need to be aware of so that you don’t waste a lot of money on fees.

There isn’t a credit check to sign up for this card, which is helpful for those with less-than-stellar credit. And because you can enjoy cash back on purchases, it is an excellent option for a lot of retirees.

It’s easy to add money to your card by bank transfer, direct deposit, MoneyPak, and even through Western Union. Additionally, there are more than 100,000 reload centers located across the country.

Make sure if you opt for the Netspend Visa Prepaid Card you choose the best plan for you. Currently, there are three different plans to choose from, each with three levels. Go here to view their current pricing matrix.

The nice thing about this card is that you can make adjustments to your plan at any time. Do this through the Netspend website if you find that a different plan will give you better options.

7. Best Card if Your Credit is Still Bad: Credit One Bank Unsecured Platinum Visa

If you’ve entered retirement with bad credit, don’t worry. You can still get a secured credit card. And the Credit One Bank Unsecured Platinum Visa is one of our favorites.

Many cards penalize you for having poor credit, but this one doesn’t. You’ll get a free copy of your credit score each month, and the annual fee will range depending on your credit score.

The credit limit that you can get with this card ranges up to $1,500, which is a fast and easy way to improve your credit. There is no sign-up bonus, and you do have to pay more than usual for cash advances. But being able to use a credit card to improve and build your credit makes this an excellent option for a lot of retirees.

Finally, you can earn points with this secured card. You’ll get 1% cash back, and the rewards will post to your account automatically.

Bottom Line

As you can see, there are a lot of great credit cards for retirees to choose from. And deciding what is most important to you will help you make the right choice for your needs.

These seven cards offer a wide variety of different features and benefits to their users. But please let us know if you think we missed a card in the comments below!

Topics: Credit Cards

The post 7 Best Credit Cards for Seniors and Retirees appeared first on The Dough Roller.

via Finance Xpress

Hey everyone! Today, I have a great article from Liz Stapleton. A licensed attorney since 2012, and a blogger since 2014, she has spoken at both virtual and in person conferences, including FinCon (my favorite blogging conference), on the importance of legally protecting your blog and business. She is the founder and voice behind Less Debt, More Wine – a personal finance site, and ElizabethStapleton.com, where she helps readers earn more money while making sure they are protecting themselves and their businesses legally. Enjoy!

When you first decide to start a blog, you are filled with ideas and inspirations and a long list of what you want to do. But chances are the legal compliance and protecting your blog aren’t high on that list if they’re on there at all.

After a while you realize there are probably some things you need to do to either protect or blog or to have it be compliant with the law.

Unless you went to law school, you’re probably stressing about what those things are and perhaps how much it would cost to hire a lawyer.

Well, I’m excited to be here to help you understand some of the most common legal mistakes bloggers make and what to do about them so that you and your blog are keeping things legit and your income is protected.

But before we get to it, a necessary disclaimer:

While I am an attorney, I am not your attorney and nothing in this post is to be construed as creating an attorney-client relationship. Additionally, nothing in this post or resources made available are to be considered legal advice. Content and resources provided are meant for educational and informational purposes only. The author is not liable for any losses or damages related to actions or failure to act related to the content in this website. If you need specific legal advice, consult with an attorney who specializes in your subject matter and jurisdiction.

Related content:

• How To Earn Money Blogging: Your Top Questions Answered
• 12 Free Resources To Grow Your Blog Fast
• Your Top 14 Tax Questions For Bloggers and Digital Nomads Answered

Now, that’s out of the way, lets get to it….

 

1. Not Having a Privacy Policy

The purpose of a privacy policy is to inform your site’s visitors of what personal information you collect and for what purposes.

Privacy policies can also be required by law. Perhaps the most well known law that caused a big splash in the blogging world in 2018 is the General Data Protection Regulation also known as GDPR.

GDPR helped to bring the law up to date with technology, but that also meant a lot more work for website owners and a potentially hefty fine for those that didn’t comply.

The purpose of GDPR is to allow people to have better control over their own personal information aka data.

For people to control their data they need to know how sites are collecting and using it. Enter the privacy policy and likely a cookie notice.

GDPR came out of the European Union, so does it even apply to you?

While there is some debate about the reach of the law, the strictest reading suggests that if someone in your audience is located anywhere in the European Union, then it applies.

But it’s important to know that GDPR isn’t the only law out there requiring sites have a privacy policy. If you’re located in the United States there are lots of state laws relating to online privacy.

There are also parts of federal laws that relate to data privacy, meaning while there is no specific federal law requiring a privacy policy, all the various parts of other laws basically amount to privacy policies being necessary.

Not having a privacy policy could make you vulnerable to fines or lawsuits. Neither of which as a blogger (especially a new blogger) are something you want to deal with.

And if you think you don’t collect personal information, then you probably need to think again, do you….

• Use Google Analytics?
• Allow comments on your blog posts?
• Have a contact form?
• Have an email list for people to sign up to?

Any one of these are examples of ways you collect personal data, and as you can imagine there are a lot more.

So how do you put together a privacy policy?

There are three main ways that you can get a privacy policy together for your site:

1. Do a ton of research and write your own
2. Buy a Privacy Policy Template written by an attorney and customize it for your site
3. Hire an attorney to write a custom privacy policy

Now, which path you take likely depends on your budget….

 

Doing the research and writing your own Privacy Policy

While on the surface this may seem like the cheapest option, it kind of depends on how you value your time.

Writing your own policy doesn’t require any out of pocket expense but it would require several hours of your time.

Chances are your time could be better spent….

 

Privacy Policy Templates Written By an Attorney

This option does have out of pocket costs, but in most instances you would be able to implement a privacy policy on your site in a matter of minutes.

Additionally, a template written by an attorney likely doesn’t cost as much as you’d think and is sure to cover all the basics. You can purchase them at a wide range of prices.

But in most instances the best bang for your buck is going to be purchasing a template bundle, that includes all the basic policies you’ll need for your website (disclaimers, terms and conditions, disclosures, etc.).

For example, I offer my Privacy Policy template for $79 or you can get my Website Legal Templates Bundle which includes a Privacy Policy template, for just $147, less than what two templates would cost you and it comes with 4 different templates.

Grab the Website Legal Templates Bundle Now.

 

Hiring An Attorney

If you can afford it, hiring an attorney to craft a custom privacy policy is going to ensure your site is covered, but it comes at a much higher price tag.

There are some great firms that specialize in helping creatives, online blogs and businesses like WilkMazz or Hashtag Legal.

The Fix: The best option is to purchase templates written by an attorney (like these) or hiring an attorney to craft custom policies for your site.

 

2. Violating Copyright (Using Images Without Proper Permission)

Graphics are an important part of blogging. Whether you are creating featured images or social share images or just headings to break up the page, there is always a need to create graphics.

Often times these graphics require photos but where you get those photos from and if you’re allowed to use them matters.

First, you cannot just pull images from Google images to use in your blog post, doing so means you’re likely violating the copyright of who own those photos.

Some other instances where it’s not okay to just share someone’s photo without permission include:

• Regram on Instagram
• Including an image of theirs in a roundup post
• Using stock photos that don’t have proper licensing for blog posts
• Using stock photos that don’t have proper licensing for products

So let’s break these down a bit more to make sure you understand what I’m talking about…

 

Why You Can’t Just Regram Someone’s Photo on Instagram

In Instagram’s terms of use they explain that user’s own the copyright to their photos, which means you can’t just share them without permission.

I actually had this happen to me, a user was taking my posts, which were just simple questions and posting them to their own Instagram. I actually didn’t know they had been doing this until they started using Regram which tagged me.

I immediately reached out and told them they needed to take my images down or I’d report them to Instagram.

The reason why I did this is because unlike on other platforms, there was zero advantage to me for her using my images, she was just stealing them.

The Fix: If you want to reshare someone’s photo on Instagram, ask their permission first. If you don’t get their permission, don’t share it.

 

Including Someone’s Image in a Roundup

Unlike the Instagram example where there was no advantage to the image owner, in a roundup post you’re likely linking the image to their content, which they’d want right?

Maybe not. And there could be lots of reasons why they would or wouldn’t give you permission.

They may be fine with it, but you won’t know unless you ask first.

They may not be fine with it because they are restricted by the licensing of the photo, if for example it’s a stock image and they only purchased with a limited license. (In which case you may be able to go purchase the same image).

Alternatively, some bloggers have a policy listed on their site for having images included in a roundup post, check their terms and conditions on their website.

The Fix: Check their terms and conditions to see if they have a policy on images being used in roundup posts. Don’t see anything on their site one way or the other? Get permission, it’s just that simple. Ask.

 

Stock Photos and Licensing

Stock photo sites sell images with certain licenses attached. You may have to pay more to be able to use the image in the way you want.

For example, I get most of my stock photos from DepositPhotos and they offer two different licenses:

1. Standard license
2. Extended license

The default license granted for purchasing photos on their site is the Standard license which allows me to create blog graphics.

However, what I can’t do is re-sell the graphic or use it in something free where the image plays a major role and adds value.

An example would be using the image in a Pinterest Image template, whether it’s free or not, using the image in that way would be in violation of the standard license granted.

However, I could purchase the image with an Extended license which does allow it to be used for creating products or freebies where the graphic plays a role and adds value.

If you’re still using free stock photo sites….

Like Pexels or Pixabay they have some similar license restrictions. Under the free license you can:

• Use the image for personal or commercial purposes
• Without attribution (aka giving credit to who took the photo)
• Modify the photos

But you cannot:

• Sell or redistribute the images (for example, as a wall paper aka where the image plays a major role and adds value)
• Use them in a way that is misleading in relation to a specific brand or service

The Fix: Pay attention the license you are granted when getting photos from stock photo sites.

 

3. Not Having or Incorrectly Using Disclosures & Disclaimers

There are lots of reasons why you would need to have certain disclosures and disclaimers and each blog is different, but some common ones include:

• Affiliate disclosures
• Professional disclaimers
• Testimonial/Earnings disclaimers

Let’s tackle these one at a time….

 

Affiliate Disclosures

If you’re on this site, chances are you know a bit about affiliate marketing, afterall, Michelle is an absolute pro at it (it’s why I bought her Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course).

But affiliate marketing is not without it’s rules. The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) requires that you disclose affiliate relationships and has rules on how to do so.

Michelle covers all this in her course, but the basics are this, disclosures must:

• Be placed before the link
• Clearly convey the relationship
• Be easily visible
• Should not encourage clicking to support the site

Chances are you’ve seen some disclosures that do not adhere to these rules. So what is the potential fall out for not complying?

First, you’ll likely be kicked out of whatever affiliate program you were promoting and could face consequences for not complying with their terms and conditions.

Second, you could be fined the amount of money you earned, basically you’d have to payback your affiliate income to the government.

Generally, the goal with affiliate marketing is to earn money, so let’s make sure you get to keep that money by doing it right. Here are some common mistakes I’ve seen bloggers make with affiliate disclosures and how to fix them.

 

Placing the Disclosure in the Wrong Place

Some common places for disclosures that don’t work include the footer of your site or the side bar.

Hopefully, it’s obvious to you why the footer doesn’t work – it would never be seen before the affiliate link.

However, the sidebar placement is less obvious. While on a desktop the disclosure would likely be seen before an affiliate link could be clicked on, mobile use is on the rise…

And what happens to a sidebar on a mobile device?

It gets pushed under the content, which means the disclosure would not be seen before the affiliate link could be clicked on.

The Fix: Either place it at the top of your content like Michelle does or within the first few paragraphs.

 

Using Incorrect Language

The disclosure has to be easy to understand. A general rule I tell people that if your Grandma wouldn’t understand it, it’s not clear.

You also can’t say things like, “clicking on affiliate links helps to support this site.” because it encourages superficial clicks. Kind of how you can’t get paid for clicking on display ads on your site.

The Fix: Inform but don’t ask for clicks. A simple, “this post may contain affiliate links, meaning I receive a small commission if you click, at no cost to you” will suffice.

 

Professional Disclaimers

Professional disclaimers are necessary if you are or are not a professional writing in a certain niche.

For example, at the beginning of this post I put a disclaimer about my being attorney but disclaiming and attorney-client relationship and explaining that the post is informational only. It’s just one example of a professional disclaimer.

Michelle, has a similar disclaimer on her site about the content not being professional financial advice.

If you are a specific professional you need to state that the information provided is not “official” advice, as that can only be rendered if you know the details of what an individual is dealing with.

If you’re not a professional and you do write in the space, then you need to explain that too so those are some reasons why you would use Professional disclaimers.

The Fix: Add a professional disclaimer to your site’s “Legal” Page.

 

Testimonial/Earnings Disclaimers

Testimonials and income reports can be a great way to generate more revenue. Testimonials have the power to sell your products for you and income reports can be a great way to show readers what is possible.

But if you are using those things you need a disclaimer explaining that you cannot guarantee they will have the same results.

I think you’ll agree that when it comes to income reports, Michelle’s are #goals, but she can’t guarantee you or I will have the same results and she says as much here.

Earnings disclaimers are just explaining that such results take work and you may or may not achieve the same level of results.

If you want to learn a bit more about earnings and testimonial disclaimers as well as get an earnings disclaimer template, I created a bonus lesson inside Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing that goes more in depth and provides a template example.

You can enroll in the course here.

The Fix: Add a testimonial and earnings disclaimer to your site’s “legal” page and any outside pages that use them (for example, sales pages on Teachable or similar platforms, or webinar software where you include testimonials in your webinar)

 

Bottom Line

There are lots of potential legal issues that can come up when blogging, but it’s not very hard or difficult to address them and make sure you are protecting your blog and complying with the law.

Hopefully you’re now feeling confident in what to do about these three common legal mistakes bloggers make.

And if you want to learn more, you can head over to ElizabethStapleton.com also be sure to grab my free checklist of 10 Things You Need to Include on Your Site’s Legal Page.

What legal mistakes have you seen bloggers make? What questions do you have?

The post 3 Super Common Legal Mistakes Bloggers Make (and How to Fix Them) appeared first on Making Sense Of Cents.

from Making Sense Of Cents


via Finance Xpress

Finances on the brink? You may be able to get back on solid ground with the Brinks Prepaid Mastercard®. Learn how in our review below.

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When it comes to banking, not everyone is interested in a “traditional” bank account. Additionally, in some cases, getting passed the ChexSystems check can be a daunting task. As a result, some consumers prefer prepaid debit cards.

Today, prepaid debit cards fulfill a lot of the same functions as a bank account. It’s possible to have paychecks directly deposited to the card, manage the account online, and sometimes even get discounts and perks.

One such card is the Brinks Prepaid MasterCard®. This Brinks Prepaid review will take a look at what this card offers, and what you can expect.

What is Brinks?

When you think of Brink’s, you think of the armored trucks, designed to move money around. And that’s the company we’re talking about. Brink’s was founded in 1859 and is recognized as one of the leading security companies for banks.

In order to provide the Brinks Prepaid MasterCard®, the company has teamed up with Netspend, a leader in the prepaid debit card space. This card comes with a number of features and it’s easy to use. However, this Brinks Prepaid review will also look at the fees you can expect to pay if you use this debit card.

Brinks Prepaid Mastercard® Features

Brinks Prepaid Mastercard®

Sign Up Now

Brink’s gives you the peace of mind you deserve. Securing cash and valuables since 1859. With Brink’s Direct Deposit, you can get paid faster than a paper check. No late fees or interest charges because this is not a credit card. Use the Brink’s Money Prepaid Mobile App to manage your Card Account on the go and enroll to get text message or email alerts (Message & data rates may apply.) Subject to card activation and ID verification. Terms and Costs Apply. Issued by Axos Bank®, Member FDIC. Click for full details. See additional Brink’s Prepaid Mastercard® Details. Get your tax refund direct deposited to your Card Account and no more waiting in line to cash your paper check!

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Like many other prepaid debit cards, the Brinks Prepaid MasterCard® comes with the following features:

• Text alerts
• Online account management
• Mobile app (includes remote check deposit)
• Online bill pay
• Direct Deposit

There are a few extra perks that you can access with the Brinks Prepaid MasterCard®. These perks can lead to the card being a cut above some of the other choices out there. Some of the product features include:

Connected High-Yield Savings Account

There are three different plans available with the Brinks Prepaid MasterCard®, and if you choose the Brinks Reduced Monthly Plan, you can get a connected high-yield savings account that earns up to 5.00% APY. This is a nice touch, designed to help you develop better habits.

PayBack Rewards

When you shop at participating merchants, you’ll receive eligible offers, and when you go back, you’ll get money credited to your account from Brinks. It’s not quite the same as a credit card rewards program, but you do get cash back.

Purchase Cushion

There’s a $10 purchase cushion that shields you to some degree when you don’t have quite enough money on your card. However, it’s not a very large cushion, so it’s important to keep track of your spending and avoid going over when possible.

Money Transfer

It’s also possible to transfer money to friends and family free of charge if they also have a NetSpend account. They don’t need to have the same prepaid card as you; they just need to have one that’s managed through NetSpend.

Promotions

The main promotion offered by the Brinks Prepaid MasterCard® is a $20 referral for your friends and family. When your referrals load at least $40 on their cards, you get $20 and they get a bonus, too.

Brinks Prepaid Mastercard® Pricing and Fees

No Brinks Prepaid review is complete without a look at the pricing and fees. There are three different plans available with the Brinks Prepaid MasterCard®. Each comes with its own fee structure, although all plans come with a 3.5% foreign transaction fee.

• Pay-As-You-Go: No monthly fee, but you pay $1.00 for each signature transaction and $2.00 for each PIN purchase.
• Monthly Plan: $9.95 per month, no purchase transaction fees
• Reduced Monthly Plan: $5.00 per month, no purchase transaction fees

If you have $500 added via Direct Deposit per calendar month, you’re automatically moved to the Reduced Monthly Plan.

There are other fees associated with the Brinks Prepaid MasterCard®, including fees when you withdraw funds and get cash back over-the-counter. You’ll also pay fees if you reload your account at a NetSpend Reload Network Location. Any transaction will result in a fee from the prepaid card, plus a fee from the ATM operator, if applicable.

Signing Up for Brinks Prepaid Mastercard®

Signing up for the Brinks Prepaid MasterCard® is fairly easy. There’s no credit check and you don’t have to worry about a minimum balance or late fees. You need to enter your name, address, and email address, along with a type ID for verification of your identity. Decide if you want to set up Direct Deposit, then, all you have to do afterward is choose your card design and finish your application.

Security

Brink’s is a security company, and its card reflects that. Your online account information is protected with encryption, and you also have access to MasterCard fraud protection. You do need to contact Brink’s immediately if your card is compromised so that you can report problems and be eligible for $0 fraud liability offered by MasterCard.

Mobile Support

Brinks Prepaid MasterCard® offers an app for iPhone and Android. You can use the app to manage your account, including checking your balance and to transfer money. It’s also possible to find the closest reload location using your mobile phone.

Customer Service

It’s possible to send secure messages to customer service through the account management center, or you can send an email to get customer support. It’s also possible to call 1-877-849-3249 Monday through Friday, 8 AM to 10 PM Central time, and 8 AM to 8 PM Central time on Saturday and Sunday.

Brink’s also offers retail partner locations for loading your card. However, some of those locations charge fees when you reload, so be aware before you use the service.

Pros and Cons

Brinks Prepaid Mastercard® Alternatives

If you’re looking for alternatives to a prepaid debit card, there are online banks that offer no-fee accounts. You can get a debit card and arrange for Direct Deposit, without worrying about the monthly fees, while still accessing the account through a mobile app. Here’s our List of Free Online Checking Accounts.

Another option is to look for less-expensive prepaid debit cards. Some cards, like Bluebird by American Express and Movo Virtual Prepaid Visa Card, don’t come with monthly fees or purchase fees. While you may have to pay some costs to reload a card or there might be a fee to pay bills online, you might still come out ahead if you plan your finances.

Who Is It For?

The Brinks Prepaid MasterCard® is for those who might not be able to get a bank account, but want some of the benefits and features of a bank account. Those who can Direct Deposit at least $500 a month are likely to get the most out of the card, since that provides access to a high-yield savings account–and it means the lowest monthly cost.

Related: 4 Options When You Can’t Open a Bank Account

Bottom Line

If you’re looking for a standard prepaid card with a couple extra perks and average fees, the Brinks Prepaid MasterCard® can be a good choice. However, it’s important to carefully consider the fees, since they can add up, especially if you stay on the Pay-As-You-Go Plan.

Try the Brinks Prepaid MasterCard®

Topics: Credit Cards

The post Brinks Prepaid Mastercard Review – With Benefits and Features of a Bank Account appeared first on The Dough Roller.

via Finance Xpress

We all know our political system is “broken” — but what if that’s not true? Some say the Republicans and Democrats constitute a wildly successful industry that has colluded to kill off competition, stifle reform, and drive the country apart. So what are you going to do about it?

Listen and subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or elsewhere. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post.

*      *      *

A few weeks ago, the Michigan congressman Justin Amash announced that he was leaving the Republican Party to become an independent.

Justin AMASH: I’ve had concerns with the Republican Party for several years. I’ve had concerns with the party system generally.

Amash said the partisan rancor in Washington was just too much, and counterproductive.

AMASH: I think we really need the American people to stand up and say, “Hey, enough is enough. We’ve had it with these two parties trying to ram their partisan nonsense down our throats.”

So we thought you might like to hear the following episode that we first put out last fall, just before Election Day. Because, even though the next big Election Day is more than 15 months away, doesn’t it kind of feel like it’s tomorrow? The episode is called “America’s Hidden Duopoly.”

*      *      *

Imagine a gigantic industry that’s being dominated by just one or two companies. Actually, you don’t have to imagine. Google has more than 90 percent of the global search-engine market. So, not quite a monopoly, but pretty close. Such cases are rare; but not so rare is the duopoly: when two firms dominate an industry. Like Intel and AMD in computer processors. Boeing and Airbus in jet airliners. The Sharks and the Jets, in the fictional-gangs-from-the-’50s industry. But surely the most famous duopoly is this one:

OLD COKE COMMERCIAL: “There’s nothing like a Coca-Cola, nothing like a Coke”

OLD PEPSI COMMERCIAL: People who think young say, “Pepsi please.”

The rivalry between Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola goes back to the 19th century. Coke was long dominant, but in the 1970s and 80s, Pepsi gained ground and marketed hard to younger consumers:

Michael JACKSON (to tune of “Billie Jean”): You’re the Pepsi generation. Guzzle down and taste the thrill of the day. And feel the Pepsi way.

Coke’s internal research found that most people — even Coke employees — preferred Pepsi. In 1985, they abandoned their classic recipe in favor of “New Coke,” which tasted more like Pepsi. This didn’t work out so well.

OLD COKE COMMERCIAL: I’m Don Keough, president of the Coca-Cola company. When we brought you the new taste of Coke, we knew that millions would prefer it. And millions do. What we didn’t know was how many thousands of you would phone and write asking us to bring back the classic taste of original Coca-Cola.

Coke eventually got rid of New Coke altogether. And despite the flip-flop — or maybe because of it, and the attendant free media? In any case, Coke regained the top spot. Today, even as soda consumption falls, the rivalry rages on, with both companies adding juices, teas, and waters to their portfolios. You can afford to make those big acquisitions when you’ve got a ton of cash on hand, when you’re one of just two companies sharing a huge market. And there’s another advantage to being half of a duopoly: self-perpetuation. This was covered pretty extensively in the media during the so-called “cola wars.”

DOCUMENTARY: The “war” is good for both of them.

DOCUMENTARY: I believe that Coke and Pepsi together in this Cola War they’ve been in for decades now, actually help each other sell an awful lot of product.

There are plenty of reasons why duopolies exist, and they’re not necessarily all sinister. In capitalism, scale is really important: there are all sorts of advantages to being big, which leads big companies to get even bigger, gobbling up smaller companies and essentially dictating the rules of their market. Not everyone likes this trend. In many quarters, there’s a strong appetite for a smaller scale, for mom-and-pop and indie and artisanal. But let’s be honest: that smaller-scale idea is cute, but it’s not winning. What’s winning is dominance. Entire industries dominated by just a couple of behemoths. We’ve already given you a few examples from a variety of industries, but there’s another duopoly, a mighty one, that you probably don’t even think about as an industry. Which duopoly am I talking about? I’ll give you some clues. Let’s go back over what we just discussed about duopolies. They’re big institutions that take advantage of their size to get even bigger:

PBS: I’m talking to consultants on both sides, many of whom have been doing this for a long time, and they’ve never seen this amount of money.

As we said, not everyone likes this trend, but the opposition is not winning:

MAN: I’d like to see more competition. Competition makes a better product.

And this leaves an entire industry run by just two behemoths:

Chelsea CLINTON: Ladies and gentlemen, my mother, my hero, and our next President …

Ivanka TRUMP: I could not be more proud tonight to present to you and to all of America, my father and our next president …

CLINTON: Hillary Clinton.

TRUMP: Donald J. Trump.

Does it surprise you to hear our political system characterized as an industry? It surprised this guy:

Michael PORTER: Absolutely never thought of it in those terms.

And that’s Michael Porter, the world-famous business strategist.

PORTER: And at the core of it is what we call the duopoly.

Comparing our political system to something like Coke and Pepsi — that can’t be right, can it? No, Porter says: it’s worse than that. Coke and Pepsi don’t control their market nearly as fully as the Republicans and Democrats do.

PORTER: So you see even in soft drinks, we have a lot of new competitors. Even though Coke and Pepsi are so big, they don’t truly dominate.

Indeed, Coke and Pepsi only control about 70 percent of the soft-drink market. At least they’ve got the Dr. Pepper-Snapple alliance to worry about. Whereas, Republicans and Democrats? You can take all the Libertarians and independents, the Green Party, Working Families Party, the American Delta Party and the United States Pirate Party — which is a real thing — you add them all together, and they’re not even close to Dr. Pepper. For decades, we’ve been hearing from both sides of the aisle that Washington is “broken.”

Barack OBAMA: Washington is broken

Donald TRUMP: Our country is in serious, serious problem.

John MCCAIN: This system is broken.

Elizabeth WARREN: It’s not working. Washington is not working.

Joe BIDEN: Washington right now is broken.

Rob WITTMAN: Mr. Speaker, Washington is broken!

But what if the Washington-is-broken idea is just a line?

OLD COKE COMMERCIAL: I’d like to teach the world to sing …

Maybe even a slogan that the industry approves?

OLD COKE COMMERCIAL: … in perfect harmony …

Yeah, what if they’re just selling and we’re buying? What if it’s not broken at all?

Katherine GEHL: The core idea here is that Washington isn’t broken. In fact, it turns out that Washington is doing exactly what it’s designed to do.

*      *      *

Once upon a time, there was a dairy-products company in Wisconsin called Gehl Foods.

GEHL: My name is Katherine Gehl.

Katherine Gehl was the C.E.O. of the company. It had been founded well over a century earlier by her great-grandfather. For years, Gehl Foods sold the standard dairy items: butter, milk, ice cream. In the 1960s, they got into pudding and cheese sauces. And more recently, Gehl Foods kept keeping up with the times.

GEHL: High-tech food manufacturing.

Meaning: low-acid aseptic processing and packaging, using robots. Which creates shelf-stable foods without the use of preservatives. The process is also useful for products like weight-loss shakes and iced-coffee drinks. Under Katherine Gehl, Gehl Foods had more than 300 employees and was doing nearly $250 million a year in sales. But: there were a lot of challenges. Why? Because the food industry is incredibly competitive. There are new competitors all the time; also, new technologies and new consumer preferences. So, to plot a path forward, Gehl turned to one of the most acclaimed consultants in the world.

PORTER: I’m Michael Porter, I’m a professor at Harvard Business School and I work most of the time on strategy and competitiveness.

Porter’s in his early 70’s. As an undergrad, he studied aerospace and mechanical engineering, then he got an M.B.A. and a Ph.D. in business economics. So he understands both systems and how things are made within those systems. He’s written landmark books called Competitive Strategy and On Competition; he’s cited more than any other scholar in the field. He’s best-known for creating a popular framework for analyzing the competitiveness of different industries.

PORTER: The framework that I introduced many years ago sort of says that there’s these five forces.

These five forces help determine just how competitive a given industry is. The five forces are: the threat of new entrants; the threat of substitute products or services; the bargaining power of suppliers; the bargaining power of buyers; and rivalry among existing competitors. We’re not there yet but if you want to jump ahead and consider how these forces apply to our political system, I’m going to say them again: the threat of new entrants; the threat of substitute products or services; the bargaining power of suppliers; the bargaining power of buyers; and rivalry among existing competitors. Anyway, you can see why someone like Katherine Gehl, the C.E.O. of a century-old food company, might want to bring in someone like Michael Porter to figure out what to do next.

GEHL: It was a classic business-strategy exercise.

Now, Gehl, in addition to her family business, had another abiding interest: politics.

GEHL: Yes, I’ve certainly moved around in the partisan classification.

During high school, she was a Republican. Over time, she drifted left.

GEHL: My daughter actually, when she was six, came to me and said, “Mommy, I think I’m a Depublican or maybe a Remocrat.” And I think that gives a good sense of where things are at in our household.

In 2007, Gehl joined the national finance committee of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. She became one of his top fundraisers. A couple years after Obama was elected, Gehl joined the board of a government organization called the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, which helps U.S. firms do business in emerging markets.

GEHL: And I was paying a lot of attention to what was happening in Washington, D.C.

And Gehl did not like what she saw in Washington, D.C. She didn’t like it one bit.

GEHL: It became really clear to me that this fight was not about solving problems for the American people — this fight was about one party beating the other party, and that the parties were more committed to that than to actually solving problems or creating opportunities. Eventually, I understood that it didn’t matter who we elected. It didn’t matter the quality of the candidates. Once it became clear to me that it was a systems problem, I switched from investing my time in searching for the next great candidate and turned an eye to the fundamental root cause structures in the political system that pretty much guarantee that as voters we are perpetually dissatisfied.

So she started raising money for non-partisan organizations working toward political reform.

GEHL: And one of the things that became clear is that there was no thesis for investment in political reform and innovation.

In other words, people didn’t want to give money to non-partisan organizations working toward political reform. They only wanted to give money to political parties and their candidates. In fact, Katherine Gehl found that potential donors had a hard time believing that such a thing as non-partisan political reform even existed. That’s how conditioned they were to seeing the political system through a two-party lens. It was around this time that Katherine Gehl began meeting with Michael Porter. She’d brought him in to Gehl Food to help figure out the company’s strategy going forward, keeping in mind his five famous forces about industry competitiveness: new rivals, existing rivalries, substitute products, supplier power, and customer power.

GEHL: And while we were on that strategy, I would consistently make the case to Michael that, “Wow, how we’re analyzing this industry of low-asset, aseptic food production — which is the business I was in — all of these tools are directly applicable to analyzing the business of politics.”

PORTER: And frankly I knew almost nothing about politics. But the more I heard and the more we talked, the more it became clear that we really needed to take a fresh look here.

GEHL: It was out of that crucible of analyzing a traditional business strategy, and at the same time, devoting so much time to political reform and innovation, that it became clear that politics was an industry, the industry was thriving, and that all of the tools of conventional business analysis were applicable here.

PORTER: And that’s where looking at this as an industry starts to provide some power.

DUBNER: So you came to the conclusion that politics is an industry, much like many of the other industries that you’ve been studying over your career. You really never thought of it in those terms before?

PORTER: Absolutely never thought of it in those terms. We always thought of politics as a public institution. That the rules were somehow codified in the rule of law and in our Constitution. But what we came to see is that politics is really about competition between largely private actors. And these actors are— at the core of it is what we call the duopoly.

GEHL: The duopoly: Republicans and Democrats.

PORTER: And that competition has been sort of structured around a set of practices and rules, and in some cases, policies, that have been created over time, largely by the actors themselves. Actually the founders left a lot of room in terms of how the actual plumbing would work. But it was interesting — multiple of our founders actually expressed a deep fear that parties would take over.

GEHL: In fact, John Adams said at one point, “There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the Republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader and concerting measures in opposition to each other.” And if you take a look at George Washington’s farewell address, which he wrote in 1796, he talks about dangers, which could come in front of the Republic in the future. And he specifically focuses on two. One is foreign influence, and the other is partisanship. The other danger is the formation of strong parties.

Having come to the conclusion that the political system operated more like a traditional industry than a public institution, Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter set down their ideas in a Harvard Business School report. It’s called “Why Competition in the Politics Industry Is Failing America.” When you read the paper, right there under “Key Findings,” is this sentence, in bright red print: “The political system isn’t broken. It’s doing what it is designed to do.” In other words, it was no coincidence that politics had become self-sustaining, self-dealing, and self-centered. They were the blue team and the red team — kind of like Pepsi and Coke.

GEHL: Essentially they divided up an entire industry into two sides.

PORTER: And we ended up seeing that it wasn’t just the parties competing. It’s that they had created influence, and in a sense captured the other actors in the industry.

GEHL: So you have media and political consultants, and lobbyists, and candidates, and policies, all divided onto one of two sides.

PORTER: What you see is, the system has been optimized over time.

GEHL: For the benefit of private gain-seeking organizations, our two political parties and their industry allies: what we together call the political-industrial complex.

PORTER: And this industry has made it very, very hard to play at all if you’re not playing their game.

DUBNER: How does the political industry compare in size and scope — dollars, employees, direct and indirect, penetration and influence, let’s say — to other industries that you’ve studied? Pharmaceutical industry, auto industry, and so on.

PORTER: Well, it’s a great question and we have done enormous amounts of work on it. It turns out to be very difficult to get what I would call a completely definitive and comprehensive answer. We estimate that in the most recent two-year election cycle, the industry’s total revenue was approximately $16 billion. This is not the biggest industry in the economy, but it’s substantial.

It’d be one thing if this large industry were delivering value to its customers — which is supposed to be us, the citizenry. But Gehl and Porter argue the political industry is much better at generating revenue for itself and creating jobs for itself while treating its customers with something close to disdain. Kind of like the cable TV industry on steroids. And the numbers back up their argument. Customer satisfaction with the political industry is at historic lows. Fewer than a quarter of Americans currently say they trust the federal government. In terms of popularity, it ranks below every private industry. That includes the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, the airline industry — and, yes, cable TV.

GEHL: Generally, in industries where customers are not happy and yet the players in the industry are doing well, you’ll see a new entrant. You’ll see a new company come into business to serve those customers.

A new company like … Netflix or Hulu or Amazon Prime or Sling TV or — well, you get the point.

PORTER: So in today’s world, we have the majority of voters say in polls that they would rather have an independent. So in a normal industry, you’d have a whole new competitor coming up that was about independents to serve that unmet need.

GEHL: And yet in politics, we don’t see any new entrants, other than Democrats and Republicans. So why is that? Well, it turns out that our political parties work well together in one particular area, and that is actually colluding together, over time, behind the scenes, to create rules and practices that essentially erect barriers to entry, ways to keep out new competition.

In their report, Gehl and Porter identify the “five key inputs to modern political competition: candidates, campaign talent, voter data, idea suppliers, and lobbyists.” Here’s what they write: “Increasingly, most everything required to run a modern campaign and govern is tied to or heavily influenced by one party or the other, including think tanks, voter data, and talent.”

PORTER: So essentially what’s happened is, the parties have now sort of divided up the key inputs to political competition. And if you’re not a Republican or a Democrat, then you’re in trouble in even finding a campaign manager, much less getting the best up-to-date voter data and the best analytics and so forth.

It’s not enough to monopolize the campaign machinery. Gehl and Porter argue that the political industry has essentially co-opted the media, which spreads their messages for free.

Sean HANNITY: This helps Donald Trump tonight. This is a big, big beginning to the end of what has been a witch hunt.

Chris MATTHEWS: The man in the White House is behaving now like a character from on that old detective show Columbo.

Perhaps most important, the two parties rig the election system against would-be disrupters. The rules they set allow for partisan primaries, gerrymandered congressional districts, and winner-take-all elections.

GEHL: So each side of the duopoly — Republicans and Democrats — and the players that are playing for those teams, effectively, have over time worked to improve their own side’s fortunes. But collectively, they also have come together to improve the ability of the industry as a whole to protect itself from new competition, from third parties that could threaten either of the two sides of the duopoly.

PORTER: In this industry — because it’s a duopoly that’s protected by these huge barriers to entry — essentially what the parties have done is they’ve been very, very clever. They don’t compete head-to-head for the same voters. They’re not competing for the middle.

GEHL: It’s likely that we have a much more powerful center, a much more powerful group of moderates, than our current duopoly demonstrates.

PORTER: What they’ve understood is, competing for the middle is a sort of destructive competition. It’s kind of a zero-sum competition. So the parties have divided the voters and kind of, sort of, ignored the ones in the middle. Because they don’t have to worry about them, because if the middle voter is unhappy, which most middle voters are today in America, what can they do?

GEHL: The only thing either party has to do to thrive, to win the next election, is to convince the public that they are just this much less hated than the one other choice that the voter has when they go to the ballot. Which means that that gives those two companies, essentially — the Democrats and the Republicans — the incentive to prioritize other customers.

PORTER: And their target customer, on each side, is the special interests and the partisans. And they get a lot of resources, and a lot of campaign contributions, and massive amounts of lobbying money to try to get their support with whatever those partisan or special-interest needs are.

GEHL: There is now an entire industry of politics that moves forward, independent of whether that industry actually solves problems for the American people.

PORTER: So what’s happened is that the moat or the barriers to getting into this industry and providing a different type of competition have been built to enormous heights, which has allowed the parties to structure the nature of the rivalry among themselves in a way that really maximizes their benefit, to them, as institutions, but doesn’t actually serve the public interest.

Well, that’s depressing, isn’t it? Insightful, perhaps, but depressing nonetheless. So do Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter have any bright ideas for tackling the problem?

GEHL: Yes.

PORTER: Yes.

GEHL: Yes.

PORTER: Yes.

GEHL: Oh, yeah.

PORTER: Oh, my God.

*      *      *

The business strategist Michael Porter and the C.E.O.-turned-political reformist Katherine Gehl argue, in a Harvard Business School report, that our political system has been turned into an industry with no real competition. The industry’s primary beneficiaries are itself and its many ancillary participants, including the media.

PORTER: But the vast majority of Americans, who are somewhere in the middle, are feeling very, very disaffected.

The lack of vigorous competition, they argue, has allowed the Democrats and Republicans to carve out diametrically opposed political bases, fairly narrow and extremely partisan.

GEHL: So years ago, we created partisan primaries in order to actually take the selection of a candidate out of this “smoke-filled back room” and give the selection of the party candidate choice to citizens. So that was designed to give more control to citizens. It turns out it has had a very deleterious effect on competition, and has increased the power of the parties.

And the parties, Gehl and Porter argue, use those partisan bases to support the desires of the political industry’s true customers, and its wealthiest: special interests. Industries like healthcare, real estate, and financial services; also, labor unions and lobbyists. In this duopolistic business model, polarization is a feature, not a bug.

PORTER: We have a chart in our report that just selects some, what we call landmark-type legislation over the last 50, 60 years. And if you go back even 20 or 30 years ago, the landmark legislation was consensus.

For instance: the Social Security Act of 1935 had 90 percent Democratic support and 75 percent Republican. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had 60 percent Democratic support and, again, 75 percent Republican.

PORTER: Now, for the last decade or two, that’s been the opposite pattern. The only way landmark legislation gets passed is one party has enough votes to pass that by itself.

The Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare, was passed in 2010 with zero Republican votes in Congress. President Trump’s 2018 tax-reform bill? Zero Democratic votes.

DUBNER: So your diagnosis suggests that this industry serves itself incredibly well. It suggests that it serves us, the citizenry, really poorly. And it also suggests that more competition would improve the industry, as it does in just about every industry. But, just having more competition in parties doesn’t seem to be the answer alone. I mean, there are plenty of multi-party political systems around the world that have similar cases of dysfunction and corruption and cronyism like ours. The U.K. comes to mind, Israel comes to mind. So how direct a step — or direct a prescription — would that be?

PORTER: Well I think in our system in particular, where we have only two, and they have been able, through the set of choices we’ve described, to actually set up the rules of competition that reinforce their partisan competition, dividing voters and so forth — more competition, I think, would be incredibly valuable. But it has to be a different kind of competition. It can’t be just another party that’s going to split our electorate into three partisan groups. In our work, we focus on what would it take to make the competition less about dividing the voters, and how can we make the competition more around building up more choices for voters that were more about solutions? By the way, let me be clear: we’re not against parties per se. What we are against is the nature of the competition that our existing dominant parties have created.

DUBNER: Let me ask you this: when you suggest that these rules were carefully constructed, I guess if I were thinking about something other than politics, the first thought that would come to mind then is, well, collusion, right? If I can be one member of a duopoly, I actually hate my rival much less than I hate the idea of anybody else who would interrupt that rivalry, because we are splitting the spoils now. Do you have any evidence of collusion between the parties to create a system that essentially keeps the rest out?

PORTER: Well first of all, that is the right word. It is collusion. And there’s probably a legal definition of collusion, which I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer. But the effect is exactly the same: the parties have agreed on a set of rules that benefit the duopoly and preserve this nature of competition. You can really put rules into a number of buckets. There’s legislative machinery, as we call it, which is how the Senate and the Congress are run. And then there are the election rules, having to do with what is the primary process like, and what does it take to get on the ballot as an independent. The various campaign finance stuff that surrounds elections.

DUBNER: Has anyone ever considered filing — whether in earnest or not — an antitrust suit against Republicans and Democrats?

PORTER: You know, Stephen, that’s a great question. I have. We’ve actually had a significant effort to see if that’s feasible. Look at what the law is, look at the antitrust statutes. But this is absolutely what antitrust policy is all about. It’s creating open, effective competition that serves the customer and the public interest. And this industry cries out for that.

DUBNER: So in the report, you discuss the many advantages the two parties have. And I think we all recognize that there’s real power in size and there’s leverage, especially when you’re making your own rules for your own industry. And you write that they use those advantages to retain control and to constrict competition and so on. But it strikes me that Donald Trump really got around a lot of those advantages. So you write that the parties “control the inputs to modern campaigning and governing.” But he didn’t rely on that, really. You wrote that “the parties co-opt channels for reaching voters.” But he kind of co-opted or maybe took advantage of his own channels, including free media and his own social media accounts. You write that the parties “erect high and rising barriers to new competition.” But in the case of Trump, his own party tried as hard as they could to erect the highest barrier and couldn’t keep him out.

On those fronts, it would strike me that the parties failed. They failed to constrict a certain competitor. So I don’t know how you personally feel about President Trump, but according to those advantages and his end run around them, it would sound as though he is at least one example of the solution to the problems that you’re describing.

PORTER: I think that is definitely a good question and we must take that on. I would say a couple of things. First of all, the best choice that President Trump made was to run in a party.

GEHL: He had to pick one side of the duopoly, because he knew he couldn’t win as an independent. And he had actually explored running as an independent in previous years, but that in the current system is not seen to be a winning strategy.

PORTER: The other thing I would say about him was that he had resources. In the end, he didn’t have to use that many of them. But in a sense, he could almost have self-financed, and he was appealing to a certain subset of the partisans. Maybe even a somewhat neglected subset of the people on the right. And he had a very strong existing brand identity. So he was able to get a lot of recognition and coverage without having to spend that much on advertising.

GEHL: He represents a personality-driven campaign within a party, but we don’t believe that he represents fundamentally transforming the structure of competition in the industry.

PORTER: But the real thing that I think everybody has to understand is that in modern politics, the parties are more powerful than the president. And Donald Trump has gotten very little done. He’s achieved no compromise. And his signature success got zero Democratic votes. And the game hasn’t changed. So far, Trump is just the third in a row President that may have said that he was going to do things differently and cut across lines and all that kind of stuff. But, frankly, he didn’t. Obama didn’t, and President Bush didn’t. Even though President Obama and President Bush campaigned on bipartisanship and bringing people together, they failed. So I think that those recent case studies are sobering.

We should note that some political scientists argue that Gehl and Porter’s analysis of party power has it backwards. These scholars say our political system is in bad shape because the parties have gotten weaker over time. They argue that stronger parties could help beat back special interests and produce more compromise and moderation. You want some interesting evidence for the parties-are-weak argument? Think back to the 2016 presidential election. You had one national party, the Democrats, that tried as hard as it could — to the point of cheating, essentially — to pre-select its candidate, Hillary Clinton, who then lost. And you had the other national party, the Republicans, try as hard as it could to keep a certain candidate off the ballot — but they failed, and he won.

GEHL: It’s true that the parties are not as strong as they were in the past. But both sides of the political-industrial complex, Democrats and Republicans, are as strong as ever. It’s just that the power may not all reside within the party.

PORTER: And if parties were stronger, that doesn’t mean they’d be moderating forces. That’s what some people say. I really don’t understand that argument. The stronger they are, the less moderating they’re going to be, given the nature of the competition that’s been created.

GEHL: And I think we are really asking for too little when we say, “Let’s tinker around the edges and get stronger parties so that we can have a little bit of a cleaner process.

PORTER: Instead, what we believe is, we need to create structural reforms that would actually better align the election process and the legislative process with the needs of the average citizen.

DUBNER: So you’ve diagnosed the problem in a really interesting and profound way, by overlaying a template that’s more commonly applied to firms, to the political industry. And of course it theoretically leads to a different set of solutions than we’ve typically been hearing. So then you discuss four major solutions. Let’s go through them point by point. Number one, you talk about restructuring the election process itself. Give me some really concrete examples of what that would look like. And I’d also love to hear whether you do see some evidence of these examples happening, because it does seem there has been some election reform in states and regions around the country.

PORTER: Yes, well when we think about reform, we have to think about really two questions. Number one, is a reform powerful? Will it actually change the competition? And a lot of what people are proposing now is actually not going to make much difference. So term limits are a great example.

GEHL: We aren’t fans of term limits, because we think that without changing the root-cause incentives, you’ll actually just have different faces playing the same game.

PORTER: So number one is, we have to reengineer the election processes, the election machinery.

GEHL: And there are three electoral reforms that are important, we call it the the election trifecta.

PORTER: And the first and probably the single most powerful is to move to non-partisan, single-ballot primaries.

GEHL: Currently, if you’re going to vote in the primary, you show up and you get a Democratic ballot or a Republican ballot. And then you vote for who’s going to represent that party in the general election.

PORTER: And the one that’s on the farthest left or the one that’s on the farthest right has a tendency to win. Because the people that turn out for primaries are a relatively small fraction of even the party. And those are the people that show up, because they’re really partisans and they really have special interests and they really care about getting somebody on the ballot that’s for them

GEHL: In a single-ballot, nonpartisan primary, all the candidates for any office, no matter what party they’re in, are on the same ballot. And we propose that the top four vote-getters advance out of that primary to the general election.

PORTER: And the reason a single primary where everybody’s in it is so important is that if you want to win, you want to appeal to as many voters as you can. Hopefully more people will vote in the primary. And therefore you’re going get people that are not just trying to appeal to their particular extreme.

The second part of the Gehl-Porter election-reform trifecta: ranked-choice voting.

GEHL: Here’s how ranked-choice voting works. You’ll now have four candidates that made it out of the top four primary. Those four candidates will all be listed on the general election ballot, and you come and vote for them in order of preference. So it’s easy. “This is my first choice.” “This candidate is my second choice.” “This is my third choice.” “This is my fourth choice.” When the votes are tabulated if no candidate has received over 50 percent, then whoever came in last is dropped, and votes for that candidate are then reallocated to those voters’ second choice, and the count is run again until one candidate reaches over 50 percent.

PORTER: And what that does is it gives a candidate a need to appeal to a broader group of voters.

GEHL: And very importantly, it eliminates one of the hugest barriers to competition in the existing system — and that is the spoiler argument. So what happens currently is that if there’s, let’s say, an attractive third-party candidate, or an independent candidate, both Democrats and Republicans will make the argument that nobody should vote for them because they will simply draw votes away from a Democrat, or draw votes away from a Republican, and therefore spoil the election for one of the duopoly candidates. Once you have ranked-choice voting, everybody can pick whoever they want as their first choice, second choice, third choice. No vote is wasted and no vote spoils the election for another candidate.

PORTER: And then the last part of the trifecta is non-partisan redistricting. Gerrymandering has to go.

GEHL: Essentially, when parties control drawing the districts, they can draw districts that will be more likely to tilt in favor of their party. And they can end up having a disproportionate number of “safe” Republican seats or “safe” Democratic seats by the way that they draw the districts, and we want to make that go away.

In addition to election-rule reforms, Porter and Gehl would like to see changes to the rules around governing.

GEHL: Congress makes its own rules for how it functions, and over time, these rules, customs, and practices have been set in place to give an enormous amount of power to the party that controls the chamber.

PORTER: And right now, what’s happened — and this is sort of collusion in a way — is, when the other party takes over, they do it the same way, pretty much.

GEHL: So we propose moving away from partisan control of the day-to-day legislating in Congress. And also, of course, in state legislatures as well.

The third leg of their reform agenda is about money in politics. But their analysis led them to a different conclusion than many reformers’.

GEHL: Where we differ with so many people championing these reforms is that we don’t believe that money in politics is the core issue.

PORTER: Ultimately, the problem is really this nature of competition that leads to this partisanship. And that’s not a money issue per se, that’s a structural issue.

GEHL: If you take money out of politics without changing the rules of the game, you’ll simply make it cheaper for those using the existing system to get the self-interested results that they want without changing the incentives to actually deliver solutions for the American people. Having said that, we do believe that there are benefits to increasing the power of smaller donors. The reforms that we have suggested are primarily focused on increasing the power of smaller donors.

For instance: having the government itself match donations from small donors. We should note: most of the ideas Gehl and Porter are presenting here are not all that novel if you follow election reform even a little bit. Even we poked into a lot of them, a couple years ago, in an episode called “Ten Ideas to Make Politics Less Rotten.” I guess it’s one measure of how successful, and dominant, the political duopoly is that plenty of seemingly sensible people have plenty of seemingly sensible reform ideas that, for the most part, gain very little traction.

PORTER: It is definitely challenging. This is a ground game. We’re not going to be able to do this in a year or one election cycle because the resources that the current duopoly have to deploy, to play their game, are substantial.

DUBNER: Despite the rather depressing — or at least sobering — picture that you paint of the political industry, throughout the report, you express quite a bit of optimism. And I want to know why, or how? Because I don’t see the avenue for optimism.

PORTER: Well I do think we have a basic optimism. We have no sense that it will be easy to change the rules of this game, for a whole variety of reasons. But the good news is, we’ve had some progress. We’ve got some nonpartisan primary states now, including California. We’ve got ranked-choice voting in Maine. I think what seems to be building in America is a growing appetite and a growing recognition that this isn’t working for our country. And I think the younger generation — millennials — is particularly outraged and concerned and open to, all kinds of new ideas. But I think it’s going to take time.

GEHL: The most exciting strategy in this area that we champion is a strategy put forth by The Centrist Project — and full disclosure, I’m on the board of The Centrist Project, it’s now actually called Unite America — and this is the Senate Fulcrum Strategy. So here’s the idea. Let’s elect five centrist, problem-solving-oriented U.S. senators who, at that number, five, would likely deny either party an outright majority in the Senate, which would make those five senators the most powerful single coalition in Washington D.C.; able to serve as a bridge between the two parties, or to align with one party or the other depending on the issue, in order to move forward very difficult policy solutions, where previously there has not been the political will. So we don’t need to wait to change the actual rules of the game to deliver politicians to office who can act independently of the existing political-industrial complex.

So that’s an interesting idea, seemingly sensible and maybe even viable. But this whole conversation got me thinking: if our political system really operates like an industry, as Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter argue, maybe it should be treated like one! In most industries, good products and services are rewarded; weakness and incompetence are punished. Katherine Gehl, coming from the cutthroat food industry, surely knows this first-hand. There’s constant pressure to modernize, to optimize, to fight off old rivals and new. Indeed, not long after she brought Michael Porter in to consult on the future of Gehl Foods, she decided to sell the company, to a private-equity firm in Chicago. Why? “I absolutely loved running that company,” she wrote to us later, “ … but life is short, and I had other things I was also passionate about. … I wanted the company to be in the best position to succeed, and so I focused on professionalizing the company and developing a long-term strategy that took into account a changing competitive landscape.” And that got me thinking: maybe there’s some private-equity firm out there who’d like to modernize a certain political party or two? Any buyers out there? If you’re too shy to approach the Democrats or the Republicans directly, drop us a line — radio@freakonomics.com — and we’ll get things moving.

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Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Greg Rosalsky, with help from Zack Lapinski. Our staff includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Rippin, Harry Huggins, Matt Hickey, and Corinne Wallace. Our intern is Daphne Chen. We had help this week from Nellie Osborne, and special thanks to a Freakonomics Radio listener, Kyle Watson, for bringing the Porter-Gehl paper to our attention. Our theme song is “Mr. Fortune,” by the Hitchhikers; all the other music was composed by Luis Guerra. You can subscribe to Freakonomics Radio on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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