Political truth seeks influence while technical truth seeks accuracy. These are two extreme or opposite points on the spectrum. The stock market and the valuation of certain individual stocks are based upon political truths. For example, from time-to-time, some stocks trade at excessively high prices due to market hype and not because of the underlying business fundamentals.
On the other hand, DRIP stocks that consistently pay and raise their dividends, each, and every year, represent a technical truth—grounded in objective facts and repeatable outcomes, or the kind of truth you find in engineering and math. As one commentator recently wrote, “Dividends are either paid or not. There’s no ambiguity.”
“What other people think about the dividend [paid by a company] does not matter. What other investors feel about the dividend does not determine whether its paid. And what the stock market thinks about the share price of the company doesn’t impact the payment of the dividend. Dividend payments come from the cash flows a company generates [and] they are paid out to shareholders.”[1]
Therefore, since dividends are cash payments from the profits of a business, the payment of dividends by DRIP stocks represent a technical truth, while stock market prices are shaped by narratives, power dynamics, public perception, and persuasive framing, a political truth or strategy rather than empirical reality.
So, the question becomes, why would you want to risk your financial freedom, or your retirement portfolio, based upon the public perception of others, rather than the technical truth, that is grounded in objective facts and repeatable outcomes of the actual dividends paid by a DRIP stock!?!
Finance Professors Rubin and Spaht concluded, “For those investors who adopt ten and fifteen year horizons, the dividend investment strategy [DRIPs] will lead to financial independence for life. Regardless of the direction of the market, [based upon political truth or hype], a constant and growing dividend is a never-ending income stream.”[2]
Here’s our most recent DRIP stock recommendation, Phillips 66 (PSX), which was spun off from ConocoPhillips in 2012. PSX has a dozen oil refineries in England, Germany, and the United States, along with over 7,000 gas stations in the United States and about 1,300 gas stations in Europe.
The current dividend yield for Phillips 66 (PSX) is 4.23% and this DRIP has paid and raised its annual dividend since 2012 at an average annual rate of 15%. With a 15% average annual growth rate, you would double your money in 10 years, without considering any increase in the share price! In addition, by reinvesting your dividends, your annual dividend payment of $3,355 in year ten would represent about 30% of your initial investment cost ($11,419 for 100 shares), when the original yield was just 4.23% paying an annual dividend of only $483 in the first year. This is an extremely conservative estimate. Not only has it been assumed that the share price in year ten would be the same as when you originally purchased the DRIP stock, it does not account for any declines in price that would result in more shares being acquired at discounted rates over the same 10-year period.
Need some more choices? Go to our website, Newsletter Issue 43-2025, dated April 24, 2025, and you will find several dozen Great Businesses to Buy Now.
Remember, as DRIP stock investors, we are buying an income stream—dividends—that will ultimately replace our wages or self-employment income. And, if retired, the dividends pay our everyday expenses and support our lifestyles without invading our principal, allowing us to pass-on generational wealth.
Ignore the political truth or hype and buy DRIP stocks that represent objective facts, repeatable outcomes, and real wealth, i.e., an increasing cash flow that supports your lifestyle without invading your principal!
Dum Spiro Spero—While I breathe, I hope.
Slàinte mhath,
Robert (Mike) G. Beard Jr., C.P.A., C.G.M.A., J.D., LL.M.
[1] Sure Dividend, support@suredividend.com, Fri 6/20/2025 9:05 AM.
[2] Robert G. Beard Jr., JD, CPA, The Best Kept Secret to Financial Freedom, Second Edition, 48, Jeffersonian Group, LLC (2025), available through our website or directly from Amazon.com.