The new rules for investing when the funny money disappears, IMNSHO

IMNSHO = In My Not So Humble Opinion.

When funny money explodes bets can pay off, until they don't. When funny money implodes, it's time to get back to business. The pundits are all excited about the fact that "consumers" will not be able to borrow funny money. And thus "this recovery will not be like the other recoveries." Yes, and thank goodness.

American consumers will no longer finance global business. It was sort of nice while it lasted. But the unnatural stresses lead to unnatural growth. Think Cancer or weeds.

The American President has said we are moving away from an economy based on maxed out credit cards, real estate as ATM machines and under priced energy. America will harness its innovation in the form of human capital to make more stuff. Some of the stuff will be physical. Some of the stuff will not be physical. But new stuff means new wealth on the ground. It is sustainable, if held in check. Think healthy organisms and tended gardens.

Anyway, here's what I found at Seeking Alpha this morning. The last column in the chart are dvidend yields.

From Seeking Alpha
Furthermore, despite all the gloom surrounding the stability of payments, investors who are sticking to a sound strategy of diversification, dollar cost averaging and dividend reinvestment are still enjoying increases in their dividend income.

I believe that whether the bottom has been hit or not astute dividend investors should seize the opportunity that the current bear market offers. I ran a screen on the S&P Dividend Aristocrats index to identify attractively valued stocks using the following criteria: (source Yahoo Finance)

1. Dividend Payout Ratio is less than 50%
2. Price/Earnings Ratio is less than 20
3. Current Dividend Yield is at least 3%

	ABT	Abbott Labs	Drugs	3.5%
.	AFL	AFLAC Inc.	Insurance	3.8%
.	CB	Chubb Corp.	Insurance	3.6%
.	DOV	Dover Corp.	Machinery	3.1%
.	EMR	Emerson Electric	Industrial Equipment	4.2%
.	JNJ	Johnson & Johnson	Drugs/Consumer Prod.	3.5%
.	MHP	McGraw-Hill Companies	Publishing	3.1%
.	MMM	3M Company	Conglomerate	3.4%
.	NUE	Nucor Corp.	Steel & Iron	3.3%
.	PG	Procter & Gamble Co.	Consumer Products	3.4%
.	SWK	Stanley Works	Tools	3.9%
.	VFC	VF Corp.	Apparel	4.4%
.
.	Average			3.6%