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Must-Know Criteria for Picking Inflation Proof, High Dividend Stocks

I've seen the telecom industry from the inside, and I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole. Companies like T and VZ are ripe to become the GM's of the 2010's at the hands of internet innovators. Their traditional cash cow, copper land lines is losing subscribers at a 7-10% yearly rate. VZ has a decent program going with FIOS but they aren't gaining customers as fast as they thought they would from cable companies because they haven't made it attractive. Two year contracts? You have got to be kidding. T's UVerse is a flat out bad technology. The new cash cow, wireless, is under pressure from the innovators at the FCC to make bandwidth open, and Obama has appointed people sympathetic to that viewpoint.

These companies are slow, hide-bound, top heavy dinosaurs who cannot compete with the mammals of the internet age. Long term they represent something to watch for shorting opportunities, not risk free inflation hedges.