Marc Litchenfeld tells me that John D. Rockefeller once said that what gave him the “greatest joy” was seeing dividends flowing into his bank accounts.

Dividends are income – i.e., cash flow you’ve earned from investments.

Rockefeller was probably the richest man that ever lived. His dividend income was enormous. Yet I hope he was exaggerating to make a point. How depressing to be filthy rich and value money as your greatest pleasure. That’s a gray, lifeless limbo of existence. Scrooge McDuck territory.

Still, I can imagine situations where income matters a lot.

Let’s say you are a single parent making minimum wage, about $1,600 a month. Your apartment – a beat-up one-bedroom condo in Miami – costs you $1,100. An extra $100 to $400 a month? Yeah. That would be sweet.

Or let’s say you are retired. Between your pension and your and your spouse’s Social Security, you have $4,200 a month. Your monthly nut is $4,100, leaving you a measly $100 for fun and/or emergencies. What if you could bring in another $600 to $1,600 a month? Would that help?

Most financial brokers and advisors focus on “rate of return” when they talk to their clients about investments. Not because they care about their clients but because they know that’s what their clients want.

They know that their best clients (usually retirees with significant stock and bond accounts) want high returns because, for them, a return of 12% rather than 4% means the difference between prime rib and hamburger.

They also know that the easiest way to sell their clients on big returns is with growth stocks (even penny stocks), junk bonds, short selling, stock options (e.g., buying puts), and other forms of speculation (yes, including bitcoins).

They know the financial media will devote 90% of its coverage to those investments so they don’t have to push too hard to get you into them. They merely have to provide you with the opportunity to chase returns and make you sign wavers (that you don’t bother to read and don’t take seriously) when you are investing in a way that is clearly idiotic.

What the financial community should be doing is telling you some basic truths.