1. Jane Adams
2. Corazon Aquino
3. Rachel Carson
4. Coco Chanel
5. Julia Child
6. Hilary Clinton
7. Marie Curie
8. Aretha Franklin 
9. Estee Lauder
10. Madonna

Most Powerful Women in History

It’s no secret that men and women approach challenges differently, but the discrepancy in which the way genders wield power has become visible than ever.

In the years that followed the second wave feminist movement, it seemed that women attempted to garner respect and equality in the workplace by emulating their male colleagues. After professional gender equality became ubiquitous enough that American daughters were born without knowing a world without it, however, differences in management style began to rise between the sexes.

How Women Wield Power

Let’s take a look at three different arenas in which experts are saying women have power to wield:

Their Personal Life

Recent studies have shown that women play a dominant role in most marriages. An excerpt from Yahoo on the matter:

“The Iowa State University News Service reports that a study of 72 happily married couples proved that women tend to have more influence, and exhibit more domineering behavior in situational discussions in the home. Regardless of who brought up a topic, the women had a great deal of influence over the men and the final outcome of the discussion.”

Their Professional Life

Some argue that the ways in which men and women differ in office-place positions of power seems to spill over from a more personal, gender level. According to Psychology Today:

“You get a somewhat different picture if you ask followers and leaders about male and female leaders. They notice differences that are in line with stereotypes about men and women, reporting that female leaders are more nurturing, empathic, and responsive than male leaders, but they will also report the negative side (e.g., moody). Male leaders, on the other hand, are perceived to be more action-oriented and more focused on tasks. As a Catalyst study concludes that according to leaders and followers in the workplace, “women leaders take care, men leaders take charge.” Realize, however, that this involves people’s perceptions of leaders, colored by stereotypes and expectations.”

Forbes writes:

“Female leaders have many of the same qualities as their male colleagues, especially an ability to set high goals and inspire others to fulfill them. But women are different in some particular ways that make them valuable additions to decision making teams.

For one thing, women are more motivated by the purpose or meaning of their work than men, who focus more on compensation and their job titles. Women also tend to show more emotions at work and are more risk averse, according to Joanna Barsh, a senior partner at McKinsey & Company who leads the consulting firm’s effort to develop women leaders.” 

Their Communities 

As women have become more powerful in the past several decades, so has their impact on their communities. Fast Company writes:

“Research shows that women direct up to 90 percent of their income to community infrastructure and improvement, whereas men reinvest 30 to 40 percent of their income. The World Bank’s 2012 World Development Report finds that women with decision-making power accelerate positive development outcomes, and studies from the World Economic Forum confirm a strong correlation between an increase in gender equality and an increase in gross domestic product per capita.”

It seems that most people agree that men and women are equally capable and successful at wielding power, but there are some differences in the way in which they do.

Most Powerful Women in History

5 Best-Selling Soft Drinks

What are the top 5 best-selling soft drinks?

1. Coke

2. Diet Coke

3. Pepsi

4. Mountain Dew

5. Doctor Pepper

Coca-cola makes up 17% of soda market sales and likely a sizable chunk of the nation’s caloric intake.

But did you know that it is a different bubbly brew that is more widely consumed around the world? For thousands of years beer has been the most widely consumed alcoholic beverage around the world. Beer is so popular, in fact, that it is the 3rd most consumed beverage on the planet– after water and tea.

5 Best-Selling Soft Drinks

There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded

In 1995 Princess Diana sat down with Martin Bashir to give a frank tell-all interview on the BBC. The scoop was a huge deal with much of the UK population watching, glued to the TV.

In the hour long tell-all she admitted a adulterous affair with her riding instructor and talked of her husbands affair with long-term friend Camilla Parker Bowels, who the Prince is now married too.

On her husbands activities she said:

“There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded”

The first part of the interview can be seen below, the remaining parts are in the related videos:

Debbie was best buddies with non other than Elizabeth Taylor but sadly for Debbie Liz and Eddie got on a little too well and actually ended up marrying in 1959.

The romance was not to last though as Liz left Eddie for Richard Burton.

Here is an interview with Eddie in his later years.

Thanks for reading – Elizabeth Taylor left Eddie Fisher for Richard Burton

However Bogart married Lauren Bacall and the pair stayed married until Bogart died 12 years later. Below is a video about their weeding.

Bacall married 12 years until Bogart’s death

Thanks for reading - Bacall married 12 years until Bogart’s death

Chris Brown explains neck tattoo

The tattoo on his neck got people talking and going on about how it was Rihanna. Of course that would be stupid to put a half skulled bruised woman on the neck of a man who caused pain to that woman.

So i’s obvious it’s not Rihanna and understandably the artist who inked the design was a little unhappy that people would have thought he did that!

So what does Chris say it is? The tattoo is a Sugar Skull, a homage to Day of the Dead art, a Mexican holiday to honor the dead.

The artists also said when the controversy started the tatt was still fairly new and wasn’t fully healed.

More can be read on Perez Hilton.

John Slaughter +Tribe Tattoo +Denver

John Slaughter opened his Tattoo shop, Tribe Tattoo in Denver, in 2001. Since then their work has been growing from strength to strength with a very inked art board customer, NBA star Chris Anderson.

If you happen to be in Denver and feel like being inked here are the shop details:

Tribe Tattoo Studio Denver
674 Santa Fe Dr
Denver 80204
Neighborhood: Lincoln Park, Southwest,

URL : http://www.tribetattoo.com

About:

Tribe Tattoo Studio Denver is leading creative tattoo shop and art gallery. Understanding the importance of community, tribe and culture, John Slaughter opened Tribe Tattoo on April 15th, 2001.

Tribe Tattoo Studio offers excellent quality on custom tattooing, piercing and paintings. As a client at Tribe, you will recieve personal attention  that is matched by no other shop. And with the palatably decorated

Have you been to their Studio? Have you seen their work? Head over to their website for a look.

Thanks for reading - John Slaughter +Tribe Tattoo +Denver

How much will I need to retire

I’m going to give some of my tips (and my personal opinion, seeking professional advice is recommended).

The simplest way to start is to probably work out how much you happily live on now. Say you live very comfortably on $35k a year. That’s a great first number to start with but it may be able to be deconstructed a little.

How much will I need to retire

That $35 may well include spending money on kids, paying a mortgage and even paying into a retirement. Theoretically you can take all those elements away as your kids should be gone, mortgage all paid and retirement fund paying back to you! For now let’s say that it works out 75% of that $35k, so you decide you need $26.25k, let’s round that up to $27k.

So great you need $27k (an example) a year for the rest of your life after retirement. So 65-95 is 30 years, multiplied by $27k is $810k…. Wow, suddenly that figure is looking a little high!

Sadly we are not done just yet…. $810k in todays money will likely be worth quite a bit less by the time your retirement comes knocking.

Inflation is something that needs to be factored in. Inflationdata.com says “As we can see the Average annual inflation rate is 3.23%. That doesn’t sound too bad until we realize that at that rate prices will double every 20 years.”.

So if I understand that correctly, say you are 25 now and you plan to retire with the equivalent of $810k in 40 years time. The actual figure in future terms to aim for could be around $240.3k!

Supposedly investing into retirement plans that should stay above inflation will help you reach this goal but as we have seen with various crashes over the years it’s not as easy or simple as that to rely on such things. Saving $810k over 40 years means you have to save $20,250 each and every year and hopefully if you are lucky wherever you invest will stay inline with inflation and spit out an amount at the other end that will be enough for you to retire on!

You better get saving!

This article is all my opinion and I am far from a savings or retirement expert so I would love to hear from anyone who has professional or more sound advice to point out any of my mistakes or shortcomings in this logic! Anyone who has successfully saved for retirement may want to chime in too!

Related: Will Stocks Save Your Retirement?

Thanks a million for reading.

Are 401ks Better than Pensions?

When you have your cash and want to put it away your options should be simple and varied. However the options you have may not be that far and wide.

It’s a lot harder to get a pension these days and in so many cases the 401k is the only viable option. However it’s possible that they are not performing that well at all!

A 2010 CBS article said:

“from 1995 through 2007 pension returns bested 401(k) returns by an average of one percentage point per year, on an asset-weighted basis. The old-fashioned defined benefit plan surveyed delivered an annualized 10.13 percent return over that cycle, while 401(k)s posted an annualized 9.06 percent gain. While 2008 was a down year all around, pension plans still outperformed by the same one percentage point differential.”

Source: CBS.

Then onto 20 Something Finance. They talk about security you get along with a pension and the fact that this does not come along with a pension. They also go onto explain what a pension actually is:

“A defined benefit plan is what most of us commonly refer to as a ‘pension’. These plans offer guaranteed automatic payouts in retirement based on a formula that usually takes into account your salary and years of service. The longer you work and the more you make, the higher your automatic payouts. Most employers offered defined benefit plans at one point. Social Security is a type of defined benefit plan.”

Source: 20 Something Finance.

And 7 years ago the Fool had said:

“A recent study by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College examined whether employees with defined contribution plans fared better than their counterparts with defined benefit plans. Unfortunately, the results suggest that 401(k) plan participants aren’t doing as well as employees who have access to traditional defined benefit plans.”

Source: The Fool.

So why a 401k? Well it saves the employer some cash and gives you the 401k receiver full control over the investments in the 401k. This means that you are free to mess it up if you want!

This means a lot of learning and careful planning if you want full control but of course that can be a lot of fun. Your hard work could pay off and bring you a better payback than your pension but of course could become a bit of an obsession like any investment!

So what would you choose? What do you currently have? Are you thinking of changing? Do you have any further advice?

Thanks for reading.

Los Angeles Time + UCLA proposal not staged at 71-63 UCLA over Richmond

During the UCLA and Richmond game, which ended 71-63 in favor of UCLA, on December 23rd 2011 the Mistletoe cam came the lucky way of one fan with a special question.

His girlfriend looked thrilled and then he pulled out a box and asked the question. She asked something along the lines of “are you serious” or “is this a joke” and he replied that it was serious. Embarrassingly she got her bag and left in a hurry!

What a sad moment but I guess they can’t all be yesses!

Here is the moment on camera:

So the question went around asking if this video was in fact a hoax. The Los Angeles Times was able to get word from UCLA who claim that sadly it was not.

I feel bad for the guy and the girl, who knows if it ruined their relationship but marriage isn’t for everyone. Proposing in front of a lot of people like this is a rough move if it goes sour and it will stick with both of them forever now!

Would you or have you every pulled a stunt like this? Did it turn out good or bad?

Related: White Castle marriage proposal + someone else proposed first | Don Walling drops ring when proposing on Brooklyn bridge

Thanks for reading - Los Angeles Time + UCLA proposal not staged at 71-63 UCLA over Richmond